Jon Robertson Art Blog

So i’ve been slaving away (after the holidays and what-not) on a new batch of tattoo machines…

I’m calling this one Barnacle Bill….

UPDATED!! -with new photos of Bill…..

A quick primer on tattoo machines, and why mine are weird:

( by the way, there is more information on this subject at my other site: norcaltattoo.net )

(apologies to anyone familiar with the art: I intend this as a primer for those without experience in the field)

A tattoo machine (don’t call it a gun) is basically a metal frame with two electromagnets that convert DC power to AC through a simple mechanical oscillation. Tattooists use them everyday, and they are a vital tool for all tattoo studios. Therefore, they have to be reliable, sufficiently strong, and well-tuned. In use, the machine is connected to a (sterilized) tube with a long needle running through it. The needle has a little loop on the end which connects to a little nipple at the tip of the armature bar. Power is connected to the circuit, and when the artist steps on the pedal, the electromagnets yank the armature bar downward, driving the needle into your skin, and releasing the top spring from the contact screw, which breaks the circuit mid-stroke. The spring then bounces back, closing the circuit once more, and the whole cycle starts again. This happens anywhere from 80 to 150 times per second, depending on how an artist is using that particular machine.

Here’s a photo of your basic Tattoo machine. A chunk of steel (sometimes iron, brass, aluminum, etc.) has been cut, drilled, and bent into a shape that can accommodate two coils, the springs, contact points, and a tube vise. This particular model retails (allegedly) for $135. A really basic, no-frills machine. (I can’t vouch for its reliability or strength, but it looks like a halfway decent machine)

Now, on the other end of the spectrum are guys like Aaron Cain, Junebug,  John Clark, and a few others, who have elevated the creation of these tools to a true art form. Using just about every metal craft known to man, to create machines that are more like exquisite jewelry than cheap tools. One of my studio tenants in the foundry up here in Humboldt, has his own tattoo shop, and wanted to take a shot at making custom machines. After he saw some of my bronze work, we got to chatting, and he convinced me to take a shot at it. Tattoo machines are an interesting niche market. On one end, you’ve got poorly made mass-produced Chinese crap for $20, and on the other end, people are paying many thousands of dollars for unique works of art that just happen to be tools for an artist. There are fetishist collectors out there with hundreds of machines in their stable.

Much of the custom tattoo machine world is about getting a basic frame, and carving on it with various high-speed tools, to achieve a bio-mechanical look, which is all the rage nowadays (think H.R. Geiger). I came at it from a bronze sculptor’s perspective, and wanted to figure a way to get rid of the blocky, square-and-flat quality that seemed to pervade a lot of the more common carved machines.

Essentially, If you can find a way (any way) to get metal in the right place for all the contact points (some of which are negotiable, geographically) you can do whatever the hell you want to do with the rest of the frame. The first one I designed is now called the U-Frame, and we’ve shipped quite a few of them off by now. Here’s a few shots of the U-Frame:

-lots more images of the U-Frame here

With the original U-Frame, I wanted a really simple elegant shape, with zero flat spots. (other than the mechanical contact points, which had to be milled in.) There are 21 different machining operations involved in each piece, and they are extremely labor intensive to produce. As a result, for the last month or so, I’ve been refining my process for creating the machines, using a few different techniques.

In order to get the little intricate details, and to maintain precision, I’ve rebuilt a piece of equipment more commonly used for casting jewelry, called a centrifugal casting machine. It is designed to spin the metal into a mold sideways, instead of pouring it in using gravity. (this amplifies the speed and pressure of the molten metal, making castings more reliable on a small scale.  I’m working with a much bigger centrifuge flask than normal, and it gets a little hairy when the mold flashes (or cracks), and molten bronze goes flying across the room (working out the kinks, here..)

Any how, it has allowed me to get a little crazier with my designs, and will hopefully speed up my production process, by saving the mill work on each unit. (from here on out, I’m hoping to use a machined prototype, some high-resolution prototype molds, and the centrifuge, to cut out that step on each one.)

A few more shots of Bill:

Alongside barnacle bill, I’ve been working on a few other pieces, and the scorpion is on the way.

stay tuned…..

UPDATED PHOTOS OF BILL WITH THE PRODUCTION HARDWARE:

Thanks for looking!!

Tags: barnacle, bill, machines, norcal, tattoo

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 2:13 am and is filed under Sculpture, in progress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.