The Ever Evolving Tattoo Machine

Tattoos have been around for longer than we have been keeping records but tattoo machines are still a relatively new addition to the body art industry.  In past and current cultures branding, cutting, and other forms of tattoo have been common place for many millennium.  Many of the current popular tattoos are based on old world designs of body art.

Tattoo machines have really allowed us to take our body art to the next level and as can be apparent when you go to the beach they have also allowed us to proliferate the number of tattoos that are being given.

The tattoo machine is really nothing more than a tattoo gun and is a complex piece of equipment in a simple sort of way.  You can think of them like a sewing machine.  They can make as many as 30,000 revolutions per minute.  This is accomplished with an electromagnetic coil that causes the needle to move back and forth very quickly.  Different configurations of needle setups allow the artists to accomplish different aims like shading or drawing clean lines.

The prolific inventor Thomas Edison is responsible for the first rudimentary tattoo machine, though at the time it was designed for punching holes in paper to make designs with dust.  This was in 1876 and it was not until over 15 years later that the first patent was given to a tattoo machine.  This assembly contained an ink chamber, a needle, and some variation in needle stroke adjustment.  This is when tattoo really started to become what it is today.

Tattoo machines have continued to evolve over the years and now most machines are highly precise pieces of equipment.  They are constructed of mostly of replaceable interchangeable parts, so as to avoid having avoid replacing a machine every time something breaks.

The tattoo needles have also come a long way and are now mainly sold in pre sealed pre sterilized packages.  Needles are not expected to be used more that once and for this reason have been modified so that they can be changed quickly.  Quality control makes sure that needles are all the same and are free from any bends or burs.

Modern tattoo guns can control needle speed, depth, pressure, and ink flow.  Tattooing has become much more of a precision art than it once was because of these advances in technology.

Tattooing may have a controversial present but it certainly has an even more colorful and interesting history starting before the Romans and before the Vikings.  It is thought that tattooing or other rudimentary forms of permanent body art were practiced by prehistoric people.  These practices could have been rights of passage or for some type of rank.  Whatever the case we now have a very interesting tattoo culture today.

Tattoo artists are famous for modifying their machines and making them unique.  A tattoo machine can be as much a part of a tattoo artists bag of tricks than the actual portfolio of work.  There will most certainly continue to be new interesting modifications to tattoo machines as people continue to fork over the big bucks for new and interesting tattoos.  The sky is the limit and with the amount of new tattoos that are done every year there is no telling how far this art will evolve.  Tattoo machines could very well be in their infancy.