What Are the Tools Used for Tattooing?

Video Transcript

"So of course the tools that we need to tattoo, start off with a chair, having an adequate chair is important. So you can get at all the different body parts, lay them down, set them up. Make sure that they are comfortable but also you can access the body part that you are working on. So this is an arm rest, basically it's adjustable. You can pivot it at three hundred and sixty degrees or up and down. This is really a useful item. Pretty much a necessity for any tattoo artist. Also your lighting is really important. This has a natural light on it so that your colors are accurate and also so that you can tell the degree of saturation and also see if you're, you know, see how the person's skin is holding up. Without good lighting, you won't be able to tell whether or not your, the quality of your work is what it's suppose to be. As far as machines go we have a liner and a shader here. Each machine is designed to do a specific job, this machine is a liner. It has a short fast throw on, instead it makes a nice crisp clean line. And the shader basically has a longer stroke on it. So it makes all the little dots a little bit more open and you can get soft gradations and tone and color without doing too much damage to their skin. Attached to this shader machine is a clip chord that goes to a power supply. The power supply basically runs DC power into the machine and it has a little adjustment on there so you can adjust the power on it. This one has a meter on it that gives you a specific information that tells you how your machine is running and exactly what it's doing. That's another handy thing to have, your power supply should at least have a volt meter on it. If not more. On the other side of that is a foot pedal and that basically operates the tattoo machine so that when you depress the pedal with your foot, it operates the machine. Attached to the machine in the tube vice, is a tube and a needle. They are in autoclave pouches that have indicator and dates on them so that it shows that it's been properly sterilized and when it was properly sterilized and when it isn't good to use anymore. These are little ink caps, these are all disposable and basically you throw them away after they are all done. And they are kept in sealed containers with a little bit of disinfectant in them. And then plastic bags to wrap your bottles in. I've got everything all wrapped in cellophane here, this back in the old days everybody used to use a spray bottle but that would spray contaminants into the air so everybody switched out to just a little squirt bottle that or a sports bottle or any kind of autoclaveable bottle that just puts a little bit of water on a paper towel to wipe with. And then we got all the inks up there of course, definitely you need to have ink to tattoo with. And then down below we have sharps container, a sealed container that we dispose of all the tubes, or all the needles and container that holds all the tubes after we are done using them so that they are isolated from the environment until we can properly clean and sterilize them. And then having a trash can with the hands free lid on it that has, that does have a lid on it that opens and closes that you don't have contaminated materials in your environment. And also all the other tools and what not, the decorations in my workstation are away from my actual work environment. I don't have anything, toys or anything decorative right in my workstation so. And also anything that I use over and over again I don't want to have you know, right on my work area here."