Friday 14 September 2012

Brett Stewart's Tattoo Museum

Back in April while attending the Rights of Passage Show, I managed to catch up with Brett Stewart who is well known for both his Tattoo Supply & Museum.

The Australian Museum section already has some of my very early built & modified Machines which were made for Beans in the late 80's.
With my return to Machine building again, Brett was most interested in obtaining some of my newer ones.


The Hugo Machines
Batch 1 Machines were named Hugo Machines, which saw the very first of that Batch, Machine #1, going off to Jimmy Whitlock's Luckys Tattoo Museum.
From that Batch, there was a grand total of 11 Machines built, the other 10 were documented on the Blog here.
The last numbered of those Hugo Machines was #11, known as the "Tester" with a set of Lucky Coils.

But what hasn't been documented until now, was that there were actually 13 Frames made in total...
Because I was a Jeweller & being that those Frames were all hand made, I played it safe & so made a couple of extras just in case there was a possibility of a "reject" Frame.
In fact there were two "rejects":
  • One had a slight twist within the Frame which was only detected in the final stages & whilst trying to straighten this Frame, a weld cracked making it a reject. This Frame was completed & is stamped.
  • One had a 1.5mm drill bit break whilst drilling a pilot hole, which couldn't be removed, thus making it a reject. Although this Frame never reached the point of completion, it has been stamped for Brett.

Although these two Frames aren't complete Machines, I'm guessing in some ways they could be of more importance to Brett's Australian Museum, as normally they'd just have been thrown out as scrap metal.


The Jolly Machines
Batch 2 Machines are the current design Frame & are named Jolly Machines.
This new style of Frame started out as a set of 4 x prototypes, with the very first of them being #12,
having followed on from the last numbered of the previous Hugo Machines.
I've decided to set up this #12 prototype Jolly Machine just like I'd have run it back in the 90's.
  • Thin Armature 
  • Rubber Block to hold a straight Needle Bar (no Eye Loop)
  • 3.5mm Audio Socket & Plug to suit as the Clip Cord connection (Aussie Old School)

In some of the photos, you'll see that I still needed to make up the Bracket for the 3.5 Audio Socket to be attached, but otherwise everything else was done.
And just like with any other of my Machines, this will also be getting tuned & run-in.

Then the two Hugo Frames & this #12 Jolly Machine will be going off to Brett's Australian Tattoo Museum.

The two reject Hugo Frames.
The lower one has the broken drill bit within the Spring Landing.

Here the broken drill bit can be clearly seen in the Spring Landing.
It can also be seen that I did try drilling it out.

Side by side view of both the reject Fames showing their Spring Landings. 

The #12 Jolly Machine awaiting it's Bracket.
Each of the Frames is individually engraved by me, here the engraved #12 can be clearly seen.
Thin Armature, Rubber Block & a straight Needle Bar.
Another view of the #12 Jolly Machine.

The now completed  #12 Jolly Machine.

The complete #12 Jolly Machine showing the Bracket & 3.5mm Audio Socket.


Sunday 9 September 2012

Crazy A.I.T.S. in Melbourne

There's a special Tattoo Show coming to Melbourne in early November called Crazy A.I.T.S.
Reading through all the available info, it's going to quite an event.
The days, dates & times are:

  • Friday       2nd November    2.00pm - 11.00pm
  • Saturday   3rd November    12 noon - 11.00pm
  • Sunday     4th November     12 noon - 7.00pm


So decided to treat Marie & myself to a couple of the VIP Passes.
We're looking forward to catching up with some old friends & the possibility of making some new ones too.


Machine Building2...tune & run-in

Lots been happening & although it's been awhile since posting anything, I haven't been idol.


Are we there yet..are we there yet..?
At present, all 12 of the Batch 2 Jolly Machines are fully assembled, having been Soldered & Shimmed just like all of those Hugo Machines from Batch 1.

Ten of those Jolly Machines have already been fine tuned & are now currently being run-in by the
guys at Eternal Ink in Berwick.  (Please note the Studio name change!)

What about the other two..?
Those remaining two Jolly Machines require the "Aussie Old School" 3.5mm Audio connection instead of
the current standard spring style of Clip Cord.
This kind of "speciality item" has been mention previously in an earlier Blog post here.

Being that the Jolly Frames are a totally new Frame, I'd not had the opportunity to make any Brackets for this particular option, which meant I couldn't finalise their assembly for the tuning & run-in.
The design for the Bracket is simple enough, so I'll be making up a number of them this week.


So for those of you with Orders for Batch 2...expect an email from me within the coming weeks.