Saturday 8 August 2020

Tattoo Machine for Leatherwork

This is the fifth of my 'Lockdown Projects' - Projects made during the Coronavirus lockdown, which I limited to one week, and only using materials I had to hand.
 
Before I start this write up I just want to emphasize this tattoo gun is not intended for use on anything other than leather. Using it for anything else risks a number of heath issues.
 
With that out of the way, I’ve been intrigued by the idea of using tattooing as a way of patterning leather. A quick search shows that it’s not an uncommon practice – particularly it would seem, for leather boots.
 
The theory goes that given that leather is essentially just skin, it would tattoo in the similar way to a person.
 
After seeing a home-made tattoo gun in an episode of Orange is the New Black years ago, I’ve had the idea in the back of my head to build one and try it.
 
During lockdown, it seemed like a thematic fit to finally hack one together.
The body of the machine is from a mechanical pencil. 
 
The main needle mechanism is a sewing needle, with an empty metal pen refill, and a hook made of a bent paperclip. These bits are epoxied together for sturdiness.
The motor was taken from a handheld fan. A button provided the connection between the needle mechanism and the motor.
 
The bracket was a small bit of metal from the junk bin - that was probably once part of a printer or something similar I’d previously dismantled.
 
The motor and bracket were fixed together with cable ties and a final cable tie tensions the mechanism so that there’s less rattle and wobble in the needle.
 
 
Initially I used 2xAA batteries for a power supply, but after a bit of testing, it needed more power, so I replaced that with a USB connector.
 
Obviously I didn’t have any tattoo ink to hand, so I just used leather dye to test.
 


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