Different Views of Tattoo History

While the history of the modern machine appears just as obscure
as that of the history of the ancient process of tattoo, it
is obvious that there were many individuals working toward the
same concept. Even today there are many innovations such as
the “swash drive” or bearing driven rotary machine, the “pneuma”
which is run off air compression and cuts the coils and electromagnetism
completely out of the machine, and the contactless
machines which avoid the use of spark and utilize vibration
to move the armature bars. Advances in coils from 6 to16 wraps
are also available. Recently FK Irons has developed a system,
that is patent pending at the time of this text, which utilizes one
full sized coil in the front and one ½ sized coil in the rear to balance
the electromagnetic harmonics of the circuit (www.fkirons.
com).
Tattoo machines have evolved in many ways, but the primary
goal has remained the same over the ages; to put ink into the
skin. The speed and accuracy that this is achieved has evolved
over time, and the inks and pigments used have also changed.
There are many exciting things being developed and with the information
age of the Internet being upon us currently, the knowledge
of machine builders and the number of tools available to
tattoo artists around the world is expanding at an exponential
speed. Even with all these advancements in the tattoo world, it
is not uncommon to still see tattoo rituals performed in places
like Japan and American Samoa the same way that they have
been done for centuries.