new to forum...ciao from Milan!

Hi to All.
I'm a tattoo artist from Italy, and I work in Milan. In the first tattoo shop where i worked, most of my work were big tribal like these
Attachment 5166 .
Now I work in another shop and my work is swithced to something i like more, like this
Attachment 5165
or this
Attachment 5167
So I noticed that a lot of artists that do amazing works (some on this forum like J.Carlton, F. Vescovi, ...) use regulary rotary for their tattoos. Of course i think they could achieve the same result with every kind of tools ;), but i recently start to think to buy a rotary to use in my work.
So i started to look on the net for the right one for me...and soon I started to be very confused :(.
I found a lot of different kind of machine of every shape, size, look and...price!
At first i was wondering if a "simple" model like the stealth should be good as my first rotary, but on the other side maybe a model with give should be less "traumatic" switching from coils.
So I find the forum...hope You can help me with your advise.
tnx
Ale

Hello and welcome! I have to say after using rotary now for 6 years I'd recommend going for the machines with give. I love direct drive for sure and that's what I started with, but even now after using direct drive for so long that I want a machine with some give to it. I can't help but to feel that there is just something to the give of a tattoo machine. It's one of the attributes of coiled machines that I love and have longed for in the rotary world (until lately of course where a lot of builders are making them that way). I wish I had more specific advise pertaining to actual make of machine for you, but as I stated I've been using direct drive for so long now that I'm pretty comfortable with it and have recently purchased the cheyenne hawk spirit and am in line to get the marksman from Merky here on the forum. I'm a huge fan of the cartridge needle idea. I haven't purchased one of the machines available with give to it because I am in the process of making a rotary machine that has some flex (give) to it. It's a unique little idea that I finally came up with after messing around for years. Should be in my hands in the next few days so I'm way excited. Still have to do months of testing though, you know just to make sure it's right on. Well if I can be of any help from here please let me know. Good luck in the hunt and welcome to the rotary family, I'm sure you'll be hooked like the rest of us.

Welcome to the forum , what machine is "right" is hard to say as a lot of it gets down to personal preference.
On the upside if you get one and it's not for you it should be easy to swap or sell in the classifieds.

hi guys,
thank you for your replies!:)
Next week in Florence there will be one of the biggest tattoo convention in Italy, for sure i'm going to go there and i know i'll came back, at least, with my new rotary machine...

Do you know who is selling machines at the show?

There are many machines out there, and most of them are reviewed in the forum. If you will notice the search bar at the top of the page, you can look for information that way, OR if you see a member posting something, and they have a machine you are thinking of buying above their picture, you can email them and ask about their experiences.

There are many reasonably-priced rotaries that you will find. You don't have to spend a lot of money to get a machine with give on it. Several builders make machines with give, other than the dragonfly and the stigma. Check out Tattooed Pirate's "Rapier" machine, Nedz "Micro Rotaries", and I believe that Dale from Rotaryworks now has a machine with some dampening. The Rapier has fixed give, the Nedz machine is adjustable (you put different springs into it to make it have more or less give).

Many people feel that 'give' can be controlled by your stretching hand, and love the fact that their rotary does not, in fact have give. They enjoy the solid hit for areas such as ribs or necks (where it can be difficult to stretch for some people).

I wouldn't start out with a crappy Chinese knockoff. Sure, I began with a Stealth as my intro to rotaries, but I quickly became frustrated by it's lack of quality. I think it's easier to start with a well-made machine and go from there. Just like art supplies, if you use crappy supplies, you may end up unhappy with your result. A well-made machine will hold its value if you ever decide to sell it.

Alie thank you very much for this tons of info.
For sure i should be very afraid of using a crappy chinese machine on my customers, so i was looking for a good quality tool.
I was impressed by a video of a swashdrive, at the moment for me it seems a good instrument for my works. Perhaps for me it's a good first rotary coming from coils.

At the conventions supplyes stands i will find: the swiss, the stealth, the hawk, a Ronnie Star, the Lauro Paolini rotary, an handmade model fron Dino Casarin from ironfactory, one alluminum/spring model from an italian supply and probably (because they should be sold by tattoo artists) the stigmas and the dragonfly.

welcome to the forum. I think everyone covered it all..