Lego Tattoo Machine

It's about 22 years ago when i made this. The Machine may be still in parts somewhere.

I've stumbled across my "tutorial" while cleaning up my attic.

Damn ... that was fun. Some things i remember:

There wasn't enought power in a 9V Battery :)

The "needle" wasn't an original Tattoo-Needle. I took it from an old Airbrush gun.

My "instructable" was made with a copier at a copy-shop, scissors and hot-glue.

Good old times :)

So ... this isn't a real instructable. But i need to publish this.

AND IT WORKED! Well ... working may not be the correct term. But i have one blue point in my left index finger which proves the concept :)

I used it a while to make hole-stencils out of paper.

I'll put it into the "creative missuse" contest.

And if i win, i will build it again with my own, 22 year old instructable. But with slightly more power.

To build it, you'll need some LEGO parts.

- The 9Volt Battery-Block holder

- The 9Volt Motor

- Some Gears and Parts from Lego-Technic

- Rubberbands

The "Needle" was taken from an Airbrush-Gund and the shaft is just a part of an old pen.

I've added the jpg as a ZIP in full resolution - so you can get an idea of how to assemble it.

The needle gets hold by one of those black LEGO-Technic thingies. Those, who are stiff. Not the grey "loose" ones.

The rotations gets into an up-and-down movement, because the upper thingies are those grey ones.

Even after building it, don't try to use it as a real Tattoo-Machine.

It is not able to put ink under anything. It doesn't have enough power. And nearly everything on this machine isn't stable enough.

But you can use it to make some stencils.

Years ago we used paper-stencils which where punched with lots of holes.

After that, you just used ash to get the stencil on your desired surface.

Worked.