SwearJar

Fair enough. I shall order some steel ones! I already had the brass so I was going to just use what I had. Thanks for the advice

Ahh, damn. Will that cause an issue under a coil? I assumed that as long as it was conductive it would be fine. And I think I have a dot matrix somewhere actually! Ill have to see if I can find it (and make it work on a modern laptop) That's a very good point. I would prefer to be a little more environmentally friendly so would like to get to non-disposable tubes at some stage.

Hey all, I'm not sure if I'll get a warm, luke-warm, mildly tepid or just straight-up cold welcome here. I know enough about the tattoo community to hazard a guess but I thought I'd sign up and at least have a go. I'm 36 and just started learning the art of tattooing. I cannot do an apprenticeship. I have a mortgage and bills and there's no way I can spend a year or whatever it takes working unpaid to do it the 'respectable' way. I taught myself how to rebuild car and motorcycle engines, build guitars (from scratch) & repair amps and I've taught myself a whole host of art techniques - sometimes you have to do things yourself - BUT - I'm also a firm believer in sharing knowledge and would welcome some straight-talking advice here and there...I'm hoping I can get it here, if you'll have me? Now, I have a fair amount of tattoos and hung around in shops for most of my teenage years - even did a little piercing for a while - so I already knew my way around the equipment somewhat before I took the plunge and the procedures in place to be clean! I have been painting and drawing for 25+ years (I do art for skateboards as a side business) so have an eye for design, composition & colour. Aside from the self-taught part, I'm determined to do this as 'correctly' as possible! I would like to point out that I have ZERO intention of touching another humans skin with a needle until I am confident I can produce work that is of a high enough standard, and have correctly tattooed myself safely enough times that I will have lost count - I'm not a ****ing idiot. I have amassed a reasonable collection of equipment to learn with, I would appreciate any advice as to gaps in this lot I may have missed: Micky Sharps Micro Dial Liner 2010 model Micky Sharps Iron Hybrid (currently set as a shader, mid-tuning-learning) Ronnie Starr (unknown older model) Unknown maybe-80's Brass machine to convert to a packer (just bought, it's on its way - pic below as I'd like to know its origins!) Basic, no display, analogue power supply - 2amp output - to learn by sound and feel Metered power supply - 1.5amp output - to learn the numbers involved in tuning brass shims and various sizes of springs associated items (clip cords, pedal, dedicated allen wrenches, etc) a nickle and a dime Gloves, machine & cord bags/wraps vaseline & sterile tongue depressors disposable razors ink cups, grommets, rubber bands assorted disposable needles and tubes jewellers loupe to check the needles Green soap Dettol Stencil Fluid distilled water A couple of black inks (Kuro Sumi liner and Viking Black Fill) sharps bin (a proper one) for used needles about 2kg of fake skin (Reelskin) Stencil carbon paper head torch a closed-off room in the house to learn in and to keep clean/pet free I guess an autoclave and a stencil printer would be important next things to get? So far I've only run the needle on the fake skin and my own thigh (to actually get a feel for the depth and speed - I sure as hell know what it's supposed to feel like on myself!). So, yeah, it would be nice to not get a solid ****-off from everyone because of my situation! I have done three pieces on myself as a 'can I even do this?' test. Here is my most recent (4 days old, very minor scabbing, slight bruise around some lines): And here is the old machine I have bought and would like if anyone could shed any light on it's origins? It has 1880 stamped into the base...