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30 years ago, tattooists had limited choices of the type of equiptment they had on offer. Skip 30 years, and the tattooing industry has advanced in all aspects. Tattooists now have more choice than ever, and when starting to tattoo, you are faced with an important decision – Rotary Tattoo Machine or a traditional Coil Machine.
At the Tattoo Piercing Academy, we use Wireless Rotary pens allowing our students on our UK tattoo courses to experience the latest and greatest of what the tattoo industry has to offer.
This isnt to say a rotary machine is far superior to a coil, its mainly based on preference!
Below is a comparison of the differences between a rotary machine and a cooil tattoo machine.
The main difference between a rotary tatoo machine and a coil machine is the technology.
Coil Machines have an electromagnetic current which pass through the coils resulting in the magnets switching on and off, very quickly. This causes the armature bar (highlighted in the diagram below) to propogate up and down into the skin.
Similarly to the coil machine, the rotary tattoo machine also has an armature bar as show in the diagram below. The armature bar is what goes up and down into the skin and on a rotary machine, there is a special motor which spins to allow for this to happen. As a result, the action is smoother and less noisier.
The buzzing sound that you hear when going to a tattoo studio in the past would have been produced by the old style coil machines! The rotary machines however, because a motor in general is smoother – produce a lot less sound, and as such, is more comfortable to grip
The rotary machine in general is more versatile as a single pen can be used for both line work and shading. Whereas you would need multiple machines for these purposes when using a coil machine.
The rotary machine needle movement is a lot faster and as a result, the skin is less damaged compared to using a coil machine.
The coil machine requires the user to have more skill to use. On our tattoo courses we cover both machines and primarily focus on the rotary machine due to its versatility.