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Stencils
Some
of the earliest
known stencils
are the felt pads
from the Scythians
tombs. The people
of Borneo, and
the Coptic people
used carved block
of wood to create
stencils. Jacob
Razzouk was a Coptic
tattooist and coffin
maker whose ancestors
settled in Jerusalem
in the 18th century
and who passed
down stencil blocks
to him. Carved
in heavy relief
these blocks would
be inked lightly
and then the image
could be transferred
onto the skin for
tattooing.
The 19th century found tattooists
using hectograph ink and later
hectograph pencils along with rice
paper for their design transfer.
This method offered a sturdy design
on the skin but generally the paper
stencils were a onetime use. Sometimes,
to get around the single use problem,
hectograph ink would be applied
to a very light canvas or heavier
paper so it could be re-inked and
used over and over.
By the mid-1800s chemists around
the world were perfecting plastics
and by the turn of the century,
cellulose or celluloid (plastic)
stencils were in almost every tattoo
shop in the industrialized world.
At this time, the plastic stencil
was not the only method for transferring
designs to the skin. Louis Morgan,
a San Francisco tattooist, wrote
in his 1912 booklet, The Modern
Tattooist: "transfers can be made
for anything by laying tissue paper
over the design and tracing over
the lines with an indelible pencil." These
indelible pencils were probably
like our modern day hectograph.
Also in Morgan's book he stated
that making celluloid stencils
was a much more difficult task
than making transfers, a fact hard
to deny. Most shops of that era
had file cabinets overflowing with
plastic stencils for all the flash
sheets on the wall. The long life
of the celluloid stencils added
to their popularity and generally
the paper transfers were left for
custom designs not found on the
shop wall. The following excerpt
from Art, Sex and Symbol express
the feelings some tattooists have
about any type of stencils:
"Most modern tattooists
first draw on the skin
the outline of the proposed
design so that the recipient
can have some idea of the
ultimate effect before
it is too late. The less
skillful employ stencils
or transfers in order to
reproduce as accurately
as possible the wall-chart
designs selected by the
customer. Such a practice
is cursed by the experienced
and skillful tattooist."
This attitude still prevails in
some circles of the tattoo world,
but tattooists being the business
people they are, always look for
something to expedite their work.
The use of stencils may have been
a kind of quality control in a
shop with a lot of artists at varying
skill level; hence the stencils
would give them a dependable road
map of the design.
Acetate stencils were not easy
to cut. Often an apprentice would
start here in their career with
the idea it would toughen their
hands up. I still have a callous
of my left hand from cutting stencils
in the 1970s. Generally, twenty
thousands acetate would be used
for acetate stencil. Twenty thousands
was stiff but not too stiff. A
heavy sewing needle or a 78RPM
record needle would be placed in
a pin vice and that would be used
to cut a deep scratch in the acetate.  Powdered
charcoal would be sprinkled into
the etching on the acetate and
then rubbed into the scratch. The
excess charcoal would be dusted
off and then the stencil would
be transferred onto the skin, which
was covered with a very thin layer
of Vaseline. The Vaseline would
pull the charcoal out of the etching
and a very fragile outline would
be transferred to the skin. As
the outline progressed, the new
tattooing could not be wiped. The
operator would have to blot the
excess ink off the skin.
These acetate stencils also offered
an easy way for tattooists to exchange
designs. Once the stencil was cut
you could lay a piece of tracing
paper over the etched side, take
a pencil and rub the lead over
the tracing paper and a copy of
the design would appear. These
rubs could then be mailed to friends
in the business. This is one way
that designs were circulated around
the world before the use of magazines,
conventions and the Internet.
As with many modern chemical innovations,
these celluloid stencils had a
down side. Celluloid is made by
mixing various chemicals with wood
or cotton fibers to create a hard
material. Cellulose acetate is
the best material for the tattoo
operation, but sometimes tattooists
would get cellulose nitrate, which
is a flammable material and potentially
very dangerous. A 1940s article
in a Portland, Oregon paper credited
a minor fire at George Fosdick's
shop to nitrate stencils. The article
read: 
"The explosive nature
of celluloid stencils in
Sailor George's tattoo
shop, 319 Burnside Street,
tied up the heavy five
o'clock traffic Wednesday
evening, while firemen
bustled to put out the
flames. George Fosdick,
proprietor, said he was
sitting in his small booth
when he first saw a puff
of smoke and the stencils
burning."
It would be safe to say that for
the last 75 years, plastic stencils
have reigned supreme in most of
the bread and butter shops around
the world. That is quite a period
of time and in such a traditional
field as tattooing, old ideas die-hard.
The 1980's technology found a way
to overcome the shortcomings of
the paper transfer, and tattooists
worldwide changed the way they
thought about design transfer.
Of course I am talking about the
new thermofax machines, which would
instantly copy most any design
onto a paper transfer. Line drawings
work the best for these.
Thermofax
machines have become so popular
in the tattoo business that B-List
suppliers would rather include
a thermofax with their starter
kits than an autoclave. Much to
the amazement of many old-timers,
there are whole groups of tattooists
who have never worked with plastic
stencils.
Tattoo
Archive © 2004
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