How Does A Tattoo Machine Work?
This article is here to explain to you how a modern tattoo machine works. If you are like me you probably have wondered exactly how a tattoo machine works. Well it is not that complicated and if you spend a couple minutes reading you will have your answer.
Mechanics Of A Tattoo Machine
The basic components of a tattoo machine are simple. The working mechanics behind the gun are very similar to your home doorbell. When you push the doorbell button an arm inside the bell rings over and over again. Similarly the tattoo machine fires over and over again when the trigger is depressed.
A tattoo machine has three sections. The first section is the base. The base is the part that looks like the handle of a gun. This section houses the mechanism that contains two coils of wire wrapped around an iron core.
The next section is the mechanism. At the top of this is two silver contact points with look like the end of a wire with one usually on a spring mechanism. This spring connects to the base, which is connected to a needle arm. The needle arm connects to the needles and moves up and down inside the sanitary tube.
The third part is the sanitary tube. The sanitary tube holds the ink and needles. The needles will come out from there and penetrate into the skin when DC current is applied. They move up and down far enough to penetrate into the dermis layer of the skin where the ink is left. If the ink were placed higher, it would quickly fade away. Lower and it would be absorbed into the body.
The sanitary tube sucks up the ink, loads it into the needles that then fire into the skin. When the needles go into the tube they have a layer of ink on them that they then deposit through little holes into the skin. The skin will have to be stretched so that blobs of ink do not build up.
That is about it. There are different types of tattoo machines for different purposes but the basic action of how they work is the same. DC current applied to the spring-loaded needle cause it to move back and forth, each time picking up ink from the sanitary tube then depositing it into the skin by making precise little holes. Tattoo machines come in different sizes but all perform the same basic function.
