Provided you have been keeping up with the previous articles, as I know a lot of you have, the chain of discussions started at the electrical outlet on the wall and moved though the machine, to our previous stop at NEEDLES, NIPPLES, AND STEEL.

Though I'm from the old school, my eyes and ears and brain are always open to new and plausible ideas, and believe you me I've tried most, in the (real tattoo world). For example: A lot of tattooers today use nipples or grommets. With the grommets, as it may seem to be the answer to be all answers accomplishing two things, first too achieve a nice snug fit to the armature bar, the other to give a soft shock absorber at the point of contact to the needle bar.

Throughout the day of continuous tattooing, the grommets sponginess fades unnoticed, and the accuracy of skin penetrations becomes less adequate, to a degree. Also understand that polyurethane and rubber are materials that not only shrink in the sterilization procedures, but also it gets harder with each pass through the heat. "Yeah, Yeah", you can just change it out for a new one, but, WHEN? The nipple is by far the easier shock absorber to use, and never goes in to the heat. Not every needle bar loop is exactly like the last one, or the one that follows. Each may require a little lube to force it on, or a piece of tissue paper or what ever to take up the slack. Years ago tattoo artist used a variety of shocks, such as chamois cloth cut into small squares, wet with water and placed on the armature bar and left over a night to dry. Another choice was model airplane gas hose, but still the most accurate solution may just be the ol' cloth tape method, i.e. adhesive or cloth type duct tape. Admittedly these tapes aren't as clean or kool looking as the grommet and nipple, yet use what works best for you. If you have never tried these tapes give it try just for "shits and giggles."

Moving downward, the needle bar itself, usually stainless steel, (which in and of itself is somewhat of a broad term) meaning, there are many different grades and hardness and there's a trade off. The harder materials are stiffer and the result is a more uniform strike at the skin with the needle. The trade off often is the softer needle bar that allows better heat distribution, and in return allows a much smoother weld of needles to the bar. Also with larger multiple needle configurations, surface tension/ skin resistance, could cause needle bar bowing, resulting in a less than full load of pigment to the desired depth.

Just a little tip here for of you who may not know: Always use Cadmium/lead free solder when building needles. On that note, in the same prospective when soldering electrical connections use rosin filled solder as not to cause the splash of liquid flux on the other parts of your machine frame. It will pit the finish.

I've notice over the last few years today's tattoo artists using a variety of stainless steel needles, most being of the extra long taper type. Also with a very high polish finish. While I can find no problems with this type of needle for lining, for the life of me I can't digest the logic when using these slicks for color. Then again, most of the work I see being done today the color is just "BALLS ON". I've got to ask; will this color last and for how long? The old guys that I've asked, most seem to agree with the idea, that a reground bullet nose carbon needle, (with all the hard scores and grid marks) tend to grab on to the mini-granules and feed a more pigment filled medium into the hole. It makes sense to me. Whadda ya think?

We left off, at the point of grouping and the significance other of the various needle tapers and textures and their grind. Believe me when I say, all of this discussion should be taken with a grain of salt. I feel sure most of you have experimented with more than a few needle configurations, grind, groupings and have come up with what works best for you. For those of you that haven't, maybe this read should serve you up a dose of something to ponder over. Over the last 30 some odd years many experiments have lead to the following conclusions; also taking into account that, way back when, hand honed and grouped sewing needles, were the best way to assure the sharpest point while obtaining, somewhat of a textured surface. Even with all this extra work, the needles had a very short shelf life, most of us or at least the tattooers I knew, used zeferin chloride and anti-rust tablets in their machine racks.) G's, that sounds scary, not to mention I'm showing my age. Annnyway…

Since we all, for the most part, line first, we'll start with the liner needle shapes. The correct loop is important. Using at least a 7x, and no more than a 15x jewelers loop, you're able to retrieve all the necessary data to determine shape, grind, taper, as well as locate the shoulder of the needle, if there is one. I've found; using loops stronger than 15x can make every needle look over-exposed. For example: The use of a 20x or 25x loop, often unveils a little too much information. Small discrepancies at 25x will never be seen in skin, or in the finished tattoo for the short term, and especially for the life of the tattoo. The stronger loops can be used to evaluate the grind, or lack of grind on the surface of the needles.

Different shapes or tapers as we call them, all, perform their own specific tasks, and can be grouped or manipulated to achieve a myriad of effects. Quite a few tattooers today use a very long taper or no shoulder needle, in order to draw down, (group) as tight or loose as they need to attain the desired effect. In contrast, a needle with a shoulder, should never be grouped past that shoulder .Any needle grouped to this degree, will roll the points inward, forcing a non-linear approach, and will jab on the inbound punch, as well as grabbing, on the outbound retreat. OUCH! Also soldering beyond the grouping, will cause a loss of pigment penetration, and possibly over- traumatizing the skin.

Now is a good time to use the 25X loop. With the naked eye one may not be able to identify the coarseness of the grind. This texture can be important in determining the match of the pigment grind, to the needle grind, i.e., the courser the pigment, the courser the grind. Thin pigments, like outlining black, can easily be pushed through the skin, with plated or polished stainless steel needles. Courser colors take a better grip to the needle, if it has a better tooth, i.e., rough surface. The mildly course bullet nose needle has a very wide range in it's applications, whereas the truly bald or blunt shaped needle, tends to knock a bigger hole. The bigger the hole, the greater load of pigment into the skin. Remember this is a clod-knockers approach to using the old powder/Listerine color mix. With today's pre-dispersion technology, we can turn down the heat on this approach, to somewhat of a dull roar. The days of leaning in to it are long gone, but it's better to have a big stick and not us it, than to not have it and need it. Ya know; the tattoo machine is a wonderful tool. Not only tattooing, but can wake the customer up, or put them to sleep. For the unruly pinhead, it can do both, at the same time. No need to stay all night cause some dip doesn't understand, this is only fun when it's fun for the tattooist. Now, get out a here ya bastard; I'll work on you tomorrow.

Time: One of our most variable commodities. When early, we have more - when late, we run out. This measurable value, magnified to the atomic scale, dominates the action-reaction duet housed in the machinery of our trade.

In a dimly lit basement, a hand-tool nightmare lay before me. A journey filled with questions to be answered. Trial and error the only path to fulfill the mysteries of the tattoo machine lying in a not so appealing heap. Like many of you, I also searched to find the perfect tattoo machine amongst this bucket of bolts. Maximum performance…
Was it just a dream?

At first, the plan was to map out the disassembly sequence, in order to make the re-assembly process chartable. I missed this important step, and learned a priceless lesson… draw the map first. (LOST IN SPACE)

20 years later: It took me countless spring cuts, slipped screwdriver pokes and other battle scars, before I found the most important tool in a tattoo machine builder's arsenal; education. Only through education, including the study of metallurgy, magnetism, electronics, harmonic motion, inertia, acceleration, and most importantly, common sense, could this goal be realized.

First: Considering the frame materials, one must take the following into account; we are surrounding a magnetic field with this frame. We all know or at least we have been taught, that iron is the material of choice; myself, through literally hundreds of hours spent with Paul Rogers " THE TRUE MACHINE BLACKSMITH " of our time. I too was confident, and still am, in this man's tattoo machine knowledge. Paul had a great influence on my thinking for many years. His machines ran better than any you could buy on the market. His dedication to the craft of machine building set him far ahead of the other builders….. of that time.
However, Paul never really answered the questions that I had deep down inside. For example: What is the best core material? What about wire, what kind and how much? What is the real science involved in core construction? Spring materials, how hard and what tensions? I can still picture him showing me his way, yet for me that was just not enough. I wanted to know the science behind the art.

The search was on: An iron frame, is not just a frame, it also acts as the yoke in the magnetic field. The yoke's weight and density is one of the most important calculations in the design of the horseshoe magnet. The laws of physics dictate, that the yoke weight must be equal to the weight of the two uprights (cores) of the horseshoe magnet. (After all that's what we're doing here.)

With iron frames, the yoke/upright ratios are grossly out-of-balance, and this dramatically reduces the effectiveness of the electromagnet balance. This increases power consumption and all the inherent problems this creates. Isolating your magnetics is probably the most important consideration in frame design. Understand, if both core centers, before they're drilled, weigh say, (hypothetically) 12 grams. The yoke and the armature bar must weigh the same, separately, plus or minus 50 grains. This is only one reason an iron frame, (extra yoke), will bleed off magnetic energy. And consider this. The magnetic field, itself, is blind, and will search for any and all ferrous material, an upright, back post, and even screws.

The studies we've done here at Time Machine have shown that, casted iron frames are undeniably problematic, for a few reasons. Castings exclude cool-down times. Uncontrolled cooling of iron confuses the carbon/atom flake separation signature. This occurrence inhibits rapid magnetic flux deployment between the coils. These castings are also filled with open pockets of air (porosity), forcing electrons to jump over and around their intended route, between point A and point B. (And welding on frames?) Forget about it. Invision this: Working, with any iron machine, (more often a shader…) four to five hours in, the machine just doesn't have the punch it had when you started. I use to think, the skin was too traumatized. I'd check out the needles/tubes. Hell, even change it all out, scratch my head. Take a break. Was this all in my head? Frustrated I'd set up an appointment to finish the job later. ("Piece of junk") After the weekend, on Monday, the junk ran fine. "What da hell?" After fifteen years of trial and error, I'd had enough.

The science of Metallurgy is the key, to unlocking this problem. What was happening to the core material is this. Each and every time the cores were charged with current, a very small amount of magnetic flux, i.e., residue, was left behind, causing the core to hold a magnetic charge. (On its own.) The core was holding more and more, until the magnetic force left behind, had a hold on the armature bar. This situation particularly robs the rear spring's use of its potential energy, slowing down its out-bound retreat. The machine becomes lazy. Fact: The higher the carbon values in the core iron, the more magnetic flux retention.


TECH TIP
Material Balancing
When preparing the mounting screw used to fasten the armature bar to the springs, make sure the screw is ferric (not stainless steel). The drilled and threaded hole in the armature bar has to be completely filled. This screw needs to be long enough so when both spring washers and dress buttons etc. are in place, it still allows at least two threads to protrude though the underside of the armature. This extra length needs to be cut down flush as you de-plate the contact side of the A-Bar. Float filing is preferred, yet a quick way is the use of emery cloth on a flat surface. The filling of the A-Bar's hole gives the rear coil a flat full surface to react with. But now, the A-Bar is somewhat out of balance with the core and yoke!! Solution? Removing the nipple from the A-Bar, drilling and replacing with a stainless steel dowel brings it back into sync (a stainless dowel in the A-Bar hole doesn't register in the crucial ferric balance.)


Bio:
Danny Fowler has been a tattoo artist for 30 years. He is president and CEO of Time Machine, and Danny's Ancient Art Tattoo Studios, Both companies are headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia. Contact Danny: danny@atimemachine.com

I gotta tell ya when I first started writing this column the response was somewhat of a mixed bag in the opinion department. Most of you thought an informative snippet of information that could do nothing but help understand the working of a tattoo machine, making your job easier. Then on the side of the coin some thought I'd gone to far. At any rate my atomic fal-de-ral was being read, and that's a good thing.

In this collision, many new paths of thought were brought forth, and forced me to drill down deep, in an attempt to answer the barrage of some really complex questions. I must say some of these questions had me standing on my head. Battered and bruised you I tended to my wounds, and move onward. You know, there is a saying: Knowledge is Power. It's really true," the more you know the faster you grow," and without the help of the readers, many rants of questionable interests may have gone unanswered addressed. I learned a great deal myself; do in no small part to your overwhelming feedback from the readers.

New concepts are often hard to swallow at first, but after the first few articles the positive input far out weigh the negative. And with this, I learned a great deal more with your help, than I could have on my own. I noticed quite a few more of us ended up thinking outside the box, and I thank you for that.

As you may remember, we journeyed to the abysmal atomic depths where the view often became quite murky. I too found myself with a physics book in one hand, and a dictionary in the other, while never forgetting this gadget (machine) for the most part, all look the same on the outside. A handful of individuals insisted on filtering the haze, in an attempt to find the hidden truths in the magnetics, and metallurgic physics. This truly showed a thirst to improve the performance of the tattoo machine. After all, that's what the column intended to do.

Moving forward from issue to issue the battle scars healed, and more and more of you sent in letters of approval. My dignity was restored, in no small part to Bob Baxter and diligent pep talks and assurances that kept me on track. Many thanks to Larry Flint Publications, and the staff of Skin & Ink Magazine. Hopefully I'll drop a short snippet from time to time in the Bits and Snatches, as well as dropping by the online chat room at: www.skinandink.com

Make sure to keep in touch with the magazine and the tattoo convention schedules, as I'll be holding seminars at quite a few conventions around the world this year. The seminar/workshops will be in a private forum i.e. hospitality suite format. I feel this concept should be more informative than ever. Bring your machines for a little one on one. Nothing really has the bunch, like good ole practical experience. We intend to send out invitations to all the tattoo shops in a 200-mile area of any of the conventions on my schedule. I hope to see you there.
I have many new projects in the works in the coming years and have simply run out of the hours needed to the article the proper and diligence it deserves. So in closing, Thanks again for taking part in the success of Skin & Ink.

Kudos, Bob at Skin & Ink Magazine…Great Job…We'll Do Lunch….

I'd like to get a little house cleaning out of way concerning a couple of formulas in the May 2000 issue. As you may remember the article concerned the balance of energies in the front spring. The formulas got messed up in the translation; they should have looked like this:

Ut = Ufs + Urs + Uor
or Ut = _kfsyfs + _krsyrs + _koryor

That's out of the way, I feel better now.

Are your trays still stowed and your seats in their upright position? I sure as hell hope so…and by the way, this may be a good time to grab the little white bag from the seatback in front of you, just in case.

In the last issue I talked about looking at the coils in a tattoo machine as components in an electronic circuit. This issue we're going to look at the circuit as a whole.

Here a tattoo machine is represented as a schematic diagram and it looks something like this:



This schematic illustrates a standard form of a parallel inductor/capacitor tuned circuit. The current flow through this circuit is inversely related to the impedance (Z) of the circuit:
I = E/Z

Where I is the current, E is the voltage and Z is the impedance. Some of you might recognize this as a variation of Ohm's Law (E = IR) and it is. The difference in the two equations is; where R (resistance) is not frequency dependant, Z (impedance) is, meaning the resistance changes with frequency. We need to see if our tattoo machines respond to the opening and closing of the contact point.

Since we are dealing with a tuned circuit we need to make sure our frequency operating range doesn't trigger additional resistance. We can find the range where we might find trouble like this:



Where L is measured in microhenrys, C measured in picofarads and f is the frequency in kHz. The numbers associated with tattoo machines are: L equals about 4 microhenrys and C equals 2.2 x 107 picofarads (22mf). That gives us a frequency of about 17 kHz. Our machines run at about 60 Hz

What does this mean? It means we only need to consider the coils in terms of DC resistance, but what an important thing it is! The coil resistance determines current flow and current flow determines how strong the magnetic field of the coils is. The other thing resistance affects is heat. Have you ever seen machines run so hot that they melt a barrier bag, or worse yet, scorch blisters on your knuckles? I have. The hotter your coils run the more energy you waste, and wasted energy is no longer available to pull the armature bar down.

Remember Ohm's Law E=I/R? If you like your machine to run at 11 volts you can increase your coil field strength by lowering your coil resistance (which increases the current). There's an added side effect: lowering resistance also reduces heat. You can lower resistance by reducing the number of turns or by increasing the thickness of your wire. Keeping in mind that the industry wire standard is 24 gauge, you can wrap your coils with, oh let's say 22 or 20 gauge wire to reduce the resistance due to thickness. Since you've increased the thickness (increasing the current flow) try using 8 layers instead of 10. If you're really adventurous, try 6! Winter's right around the corner boys and girls, so there's plenty of time to play. Experiment; find the combination that works best for you.

Another added benefit of looking at the coils as resistors is the ability to look at the effects of resistor/capacitor relationships. That discussion will move us into more familiar territory. I'll give you a hint: How do older ignition systems work?

All of this is important because of, and you'll always hear me say this…efficiency. A tattoo machine running at maximum efficiency is going to reduce the amount of work, not only for the machine, but also for you, and remember, the less connection we have to machine problems, the smoother our artistic delivery…reason without restraint.

Provided you haven't used your airsickness bag, please place it in the seatback in front of you. You are now free to wander aimlessly through the confines of your mind, or the cabin, depending on what you've been consuming while reading this in-flight magazine. Thank you for flying Air Fowler.