stephen vanzant

You might hear of rotary machines every once in a while, or see
them in catalogs of equipment. There are numerous styles and
manufactures of rotary machines. Instead of using the coil and
magnet mechanics, the

In the summer of 2008 I came across the FK (Fallen King) Irons
patent pending “1.5 coil” setup. I have to start this section by
stating that I have not personally tried these machines. I was immediately
intrigued

It is important to know the geometry of your frame. The way
the holes line up in relation to each other, as well as in relation
to how they line up against the a-bar and tube-vise hole as the
basis of your

Typical tattoo machines will use
ten wrap coils. This is actually very vague because you do not
know the gauge of wire used during the wraps. You also do not
know exactly what a “wrap” is. One coil manufacturer

Some effects can be achieved simply by tightening the contact
screw, or moving its tip closer to the armature bar. Some artists
call this the air gap, contact gap, spring gap, ect. When you take
the armature bar

There are a few factors involved in the stroke length or the
“throw” of the tattoo needle. The throw is the distance that the
armature bar pin or nipple travels. It will move in a circular fashion
with the center

The working stroke of the tattoo machine is the distance
the needle moves from the top of the front coil’s core to the
center of the armature bar’s nipple. Most tattoo artists will
tell you that this distance

When tattoo artists talk about their machines bogging down, it is
not necessarily a bad thing as you might expect. Sometimes it
is good to have your machine bog down to get a desired effect
without damaging the

There will be a time in almost every tattoo where you are trying
to pack in ink. It might be a solid black tribal piece or it might be
solid color. No matter what type of ink you are packing in, you
need to use a

I recommend that when you are doing greys you use the same
setup you would use for a liner, but the traditional setup calls for
a softer hitting machine with a long stroke. The reason I call for
a long stroke here

I consider a Liner Shader to be a machine that I use for shading
gradients and blending. This machine is a similar setup as
a liner, but instead of a hard + fast machine it is a soft + fast
machine. My Liner

The old school trick of the trade was the dime gap liner
nickel gap shader. Take the armature bar assembly and
press down on the armature bar’s nipple (the spot where
the needle bar’s loop attaches to the grommet

The traditional liner setup, in my opinion, is a machine that runs
really fast, hits hard, and has a pretty long stroke. To achieve
this there are numerous things that can be done. The first thing
to look at is

A prime example of technology making an impact on the tuning
abilities of the artists is that of the digital power supply. Even
the power supply that does not give you all the fancy upgrades,
but still has some

Presently, a host of technology is available at reasonable prices
that a few years ago just simply didn’t exist. There are those
who will shun the technology and say it is useless, these are the
same people will

There are tools you can purchase to properly align your springs
and a-bars to the tube hole on the front of the machine. Proper
alignment is very important. In order to get a maximum transfer
of energy from the

IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMEBER
WHEN BUILDING MACHINES

You can only bend the rear spring a few times before it is
unstable. Too many bends in a rear spring will cause it to
become brittle and possibly snap during a

Coil tattoo machines have wire wrapped coils that are then
magnetized and will pull the a-bar down. The coils have a core
that is typically made of iron. The core is tapped out to allow it to
be mounted to the

As mentioned earlier the front spring length can be changed to
achieve different results in the tuning of the tattoo machine. The
rule of thumb here is that the shorter the front spring, the stiffer
it will be.

The rear spring on a standard tattoo machine has to be bent
(according to most tattoo artists), at least to some degree. This
is considered a major flaw in the age old design of the armature
bar. It is because the