How Ink is Applied to the Skin During Tattooing

Remarkably, the modern tattoo machine is not much different from the original version patented one hundred years ago. Although Samuel O'Reilly patented the first tattoo machine, Thomas Edison developed tattoo technology almost fifteen years before when he was working on an autograph printing machine. He wanted to speed up the printing process, so he combined a needle attached to a long bar with electrically charged electromagnets. The needle would go up and down, as the operator would draw onto the hard surface.

Today's tattoo machine uses metal needles to imprint the dermis with ink, which is below the first layer of skin, the epidermis. By injecting the dermis, where collagen fibers, sweat glands, hair roots, and nerve cells reside, you obtain a permanent mark on the body.

The handheld tattoo machine has four main components:

The sterilized needle to penetrate the skin and inject the ink
A tube assembly that guides the needle, holds a reservoir of ink, and provides a gripping surface for controlling the tattooing process
A power supply (that can be controlled by a foot pedal) that supplies electric current to enable movement of the needle ]
The electromagnetic coil based device (sometimes referred to as a tattoo gun) that moves the needle up and down at a rate of 80 to 150 times per second. Let'see video..


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