Do you dream of becoming a famous tattoo artist, but don’t know where to start and where to get the necessary equipment, which, moreover, costs a lot of money? Do not be sad about this, because there is a fairly affordable way to make a tattoo machine yourself. It will be a rotary type appliance. To make it, you will need the following simple "spare parts": a power supply with variable voltage, the thinnest guitar string, a motor from an old cassette recorder or player with a pair of wires, a gear from there, a small sleeve, an ordinary gel pen, a piece of plastic tube.
So, a do-it- yourself tattoo machine suggests, first of all, the presence of a body. Actually, this is what you will hold in your hand when typing tattoos. We’ll start with its manufacture. To do this, take the handle, remove the rod from it (we don’t throw it away, we need it) and cut it by about a third from the back. In the nose of the handle, on the side, you can make a small hole with a knife (about 5 mm) to make it more convenient to draw mascara. We clean the edges of the hole with a small file so that small filings do not get into the wound.
The next step, how to make a tattoo machine, will be the manufacture of a guiding needle. It is made from the rod of the same handle. It also needs to be cut to the length of the body and the paint removed. Next, remove the spout from the rod, take the needle and use it to squeeze the ball from the inside. This is necessary so that the string can move. If the nose is too narrow, it needs to be expanded by grinding the tip with a file: the string should not get stuck anywhere and cling to nothing. After all the parts are ready, insert the spout of the rod in its rightful place, and the rod itself - in the handle. The housing is ready.
In continuation of the topic of how to make a tattoo machine, we will manufacture needle from a guitar string. Its length should be designed so that the tip with which the tattoo will be printed always, in any position, sticks out of the handle. When the string is laid back, that is, inside the case, its “needle” should peek out at 0.5-1 mm. In the "forward position" 1.5-2 mm is enough. At the opposite end of the string you will need to make a loop. Therefore, in order not to be mistaken in the calculations, insert the string into the shaft, which, in turn, place in the handle body. And so that the string is even, does not bend or curl, you can pretension it and calcine it well on fire.
At this stage, we leave everything as it is, and proceed to the next action. How to make a tattoo machine? Next we need to attach the motor. To do this, take a piece of a plastic tube prepared in advance (it will serve as a motor holder) and cut it lengthwise into two parts. After that, take each half in turn and cut off a longitudinal piece of it several centimeters long. Determine the length by eye, because this cropped area during bending should cover the motor by about a third. Each trimmed part, neatly warming up on fire, bend, rounding. We insert a motor into these rounded halves (its wiring should go out). A handle is inserted into the groove formed below the motor from the cut tube (the untouched part). All this beauty is tightly wrapped with electrical tape or pulled together with clamps. Next, we put a gear on the motor pin, which will serve as a kind of crankshaft that moves the needle back and forth. She should sit very tight and not scroll. Next, take a sleeve: a loop of string will be worn on it, which should also sit tight enough. We fuse the sleeve into the plastic gear, closer to the center, but so that when scrolling the needle in any case does not fully enter the handle.
The final step on how to make a tattoo machine, will be connecting the wiring of the motor to the wiring of the power supply. We try to connect it to a power outlet. Must earn.