Tattoo machines have come a long way since the first patent was applied by Samuel O’reilly at the end of 19th century. O’reilly then took Thomas Edison’s rotary technology that was used in an embroidery environment and add a tube and a needle, and it was used as a tattoo machine.
O’reilly then opened a tattoo shop in New York, probably the world’s first tattoo shop.
Now a century has passed and the underlying concept in applying a tatoo is still the same, which is to get the ink into and under the skin. Actually this has been done traditionally in Samoa for two thousand years, amazingly the same homemade tattoo machine are still being used in the island today just to keep the tradition alive.
The tools are made up of a sharpened boar’s teeth tied to a turtle shell and a wooden handle. A beater is then used to hit the machine which in turn will strike the skin. This simple yet effective tool is really painful and has been handed down the generations. Tattoo artists are taught from young and skills are passed down from father to son, with the son being an apprentice to his father for many years.
Then they perform their crafts on boys from noble family and descendants of chiefs in a tattooing ceremony known as tatau. The boys go through excruciating pain for months in the ceremony and this is held when they reach puberty.
Modern society now enjoys the less-painful way of tattooing using a small hand-held device called tattoo machines or tattoo guns. Now the machine and specifically the needle are moved by electromagnetic fields.
The artist now has a lot of control in terms of needle depth, speed, force and colors, resulting in a more detailed design.
The tattoo machine and their accessories are available widely and most importantly, available cheap. Celebrities and athletes featured in magazines with their tattoos has also made tattoos more popular and seen less in a bad light. This has brought about an explosion of tattoo parlours all over the world.
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