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Thomas
Alva Edison
(1847-1931)
Better
know as "The Wizard
of Menlo Park," Thomas
Alva Edison touched
all of our lives
in one way or another.
As tattooists we
owe him a great
debt because of
his work in the
late 1800s on the
perforating pen.
An illustration
of how to hold
the stencil pen
is depicted below.
Tattooist Samuel
O'Reilly later
picked up this
idea and transformed
it into the first
tattoo machine.
Ten years ago, while doing research
on the tattoo machine we came across
Edison's 1876 and 1877 patents.
They were a big influence on O'Reilly's
1891 and later, on Wagner's 1904
machines. Just recently we came
across two 1878 patents by Edison,
that to our knowledge, have not
been seen by the tattoo world.
Patent #203,329, as seen below,
was designed to operate using treadle
power passing through a series
of wheels to increase the RPMs.
Power was then transmitted through
U joints to a gear assembly in
the hand-held portion of the machine.
This power then moved to the needle
bar through a cam or eccentric
and created a reciprocating motion.
With all the shafts and U joints,
this machine looks to be fairly
heavy and would not lend itself
to tattooing very easily.
Edison's Patent #205,370 was designed
to operate by using air, gas, water,
or other fluids as the motor for
actuating the reciprocating needle
bar. Edison felt that this would
reduce its weight, making it easier
to use. In the related text, Edison
even suggested the idea of using
a flexible tube with a mouthpiece,
so that the person using the instrument
could blow into the tube and the
case rotating the fan-wheel. It
is unknown whether a machine was
manufactured using this patent
design.
Edison, like other inventors of
his day, had a talented team of
workers at his side to help him
carry out his experiments. One
of these men was Nikola Tesla,
who, in 1888, was granted a patent
for an early electromagnetic motor.
Tesla could have very well been
involved with Edison's 1870s work
on the electric stencil-pen that
employed a similar electromagnetic
motor.
Seen to the left, is a flyer from
the A.B. Dick Company promoting
the Edison stencil-pen (the granddaddy
of the tattoo machine). In 1887
A.B. Dick bought the manufacturing
rights to Edison's 1876 patent
after the Western Electric Company
had made quite a business of selling
these pens. In a letter written
in 1987, the A.B. Dick Company
stated, "This was the first electric
motor to be manufactured commercially
and sold in large qualities. At
one time more than 60,000 were
in use." Where are all those machines
today?
Tattoo Archive © 1991
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tattoo machine patents
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