HOW TO MAKE A JAILHOUSE TATTOO MACHINE

So i found on Vans Syndicate Zine a pretty thorough guide on how to build a home made tattoo machine out of things you can only obtain in jail, with the guidence of Fabian Alomar and his homeboy Trouble.

First thing you needed was a shopping list (see below).

Step 1 – Shopping List

Step 2 – Go shopping. check your items to your list.

now normally you can trade cigarettes and soup for all these things, but because they we’re actually in jail, they went to rite-aid, radio shack, and guitar center.

This is your basics, saran wrap, headphones, deodorant, an a/c power supply, cd walkman, nail clippers, face razors, lighters, razor blades (not pictured and hard to get pending on what jail you’re living in) and guitar string. Now the chess set and the shampoo are for making the ink. But by the time they got started it was late and trouble said that making the ink for the actual tattoo takes 24 hours. So they skipped that shit and borrowed ink from dressen at will rise(no idea who or what that is). So your tools for this entire job are your razors and your nail clippers, its a bitch but that’s how its done.

Step 3 – take your power adapter and cut the end off it.

Step 4 – strip the rubber off the ends with your blade, then twist each set of exposed wires until they’re nice and tied. This is used to power your machine. Now put it away. (LOL)

Step 5 – taking the corner of your razor blade, unscrew the cd player and take it completely apart.

Step 6 – find the motor in the motor housing and unscrew that as well.

Step 7 – more unscrewing.

Step 8 – carefully remove the motor, and clip the wires, cut off the rubber housing again like you did with the power supply and twist the wires. set all this aside.

Step 9 – take out a bic pen and take it all apart. Pull the ink tube from the ball point head and run the tube under the sink until all the ink is gone. This is what your needle goes in (its called the tube).

Step 10 – take the cap of the pen and cut the tip off and bend the pocket clip to the side. This piece acts as your frame.

Step 11 – take the outer tube of your bic and cut about an inch off the top. Use your blade and kind of score a ring around it, the saw through it. Don’t brake or chip this because this is your barrel.

Step 12 – take the back end of the barrel and slide it into the cap to make sure it fits right. You may have to cut off some more to get the right fit.

Step 13 – get an eraser from the end of a pencil an cut it off. This acts as an armature bar and a grommet.

Step 14 – stick the eraser on the end of the motor spindle. Now put all of this aside.

Step 15 – making the needle. Take your 17 guage guitar string and hold 2 sides of it, while a 3rd person heats the middle with a lighter until it becomes red hot. Keep a proper tension on the line, when the string becomes too hot it will melt and break. When you pull it apart it will naturally stretch the wire to its sharpest point and sterilize it at the same time. Now you have your needle 🙂

Step 16 – now its time to put it all together. Take a good amount of saran wrap and neatly fold it up. This is gonna bind the frame to the motor.

Step 17. wrap that shit up tight

You can use whatever you have lying around. So fabbian made tape out of strips of the deoderant label to bind the frame, saran wrap, and the motor together.

your machine should look like this so far!!!!

step 18 – stick the barrel into the bic cap frame.

Step 19 – take the ball point part of the pen and poke the actual ball out of it. Use the clippers as pliers and another string as a poker (this is now your tip). Take the tube you cleaned all the ink out of and stick it back in the tip, and take that and stick it back into the barrel.

YOUR MACHINE SHOULD NOW LOOK LIKE THIS!!!

Step 20 – stick the needle in the gun and adjust accordingly.

Step 21 – you need to bend the end of the string near the motor at a 45 degree and poke it into the eraser. Make sure its a little offset because this is what makes the needle go up and down. Make sure you hang the needle out the font about a 1/4 to a 1/2 an inch.

Step 22 – hook up the power. Just twist the wires together of the a/c adaptor and the motor. Use some of the sticker strips you made with the deodorant label to cover the open wires, because safety comes first lol.