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.