The Workhorse Irons Rotary

[G.Graves]

I'm going to give it a try, I'll let you know how it works for me.

[Sage Oz]

My coworker here at our shop has had one for about 3 months now so we've got a pretty good feel for it. It does in fact tattoo pretty well for everything we've thrown at it but it does have a few issues. The linkage bar design seems a bit under designed to me, it's pretty touchy about the plastic screw that holds it in place. Too tight or loose and it binds needing a kick start. A bit annoying. Greasing it is a good idea as it has a lot of free floating plastic rubbing sporadically. It's also kinda loud for a rotary until you hit skin and it settles into a hum. Not just loud but a plastic staticky sound that's a bit unpleasant. The slingshot armature is a pretty cool design, though it has a small arc(like a swashdrive) due to the small radius of pivot but I really like the carbon fiber rod arm's give. The pivot unfortunately isn't bearing mounted like special techniques other designs, just a metal rod contained in the Delron housing which seems to have a lot of gap allowing a LOT of side to side play of the armature and therefore an oval(rather than linear) stroke. Goes away mostly once you've loaded it up with a fair amount of rubber bands but not my ideal choice for flexy small grouping needles. Im not a fan of the scotch yoke connector either, id rather a straight up bearing mounted conrod. The looks of course are subjective, but though I'm a fan of plastic swashdrives I prefer my machines to have metal bodies, just my aesthetics. So it is a good working machine but I think some of the details could use refining to make it more user friendly and friction free. The tube vise is made very well and the machine overall has very good quality and hardware. So overall I do like it but would like to see a refined updated version with: bearing mounted armature with a pivot point a bit further back on the frame, a conrod in place of the touchy Scottish yoke, and an RCA clip would be nice.

[G.Graves]

Thanks for the review of this machine, sounds like a few issues need to be settled for this to be a great machine. Hopefully I can find it's sweet spot and do some fun tattoos with it

[linsner666]

finaly i bought one! hope it will be here tomorrow or saturday!

[Brian]

My coworker here at our shop has had one for about 3 months now so we've got a pretty good feel for it. It does in fact tattoo pretty well for everything we've thrown at it but it does have a few issues. The linkage bar design seems a bit under designed to me, it's pretty touchy about the plastic screw that holds it in place. Too tight or loose and it binds needing a kick start. A bit annoying. Greasing it is a good idea as it has a lot of free floating plastic rubbing sporadically. It's also kinda loud for a rotary until you hit skin and it settles into a hum. Not just loud but a plastic staticky sound that's a bit unpleasant. The slingshot armature is a pretty cool design, though it has a small arc(like a swashdrive) due to the small radius of pivot but I really like the carbon fiber rod arm's give. The pivot unfortunately isn't bearing mounted like special techniques other designs, just a metal rod contained in the Delron housing which seems to have a lot of gap allowing a LOT of side to side play of the armature and therefore an oval(rather than linear) stroke. Goes away mostly once you've loaded it up with a fair amount of rubber bands but not my ideal choice for flexy small grouping needles. Im not a fan of the scotch yoke connector either, id rather a straight up bearing mounted conrod. The looks of course are subjective, but though I'm a fan of plastic swashdrives I prefer my machines to have metal bodies, just my aesthetics. So it is a good working machine but I think some of the details could use refining to make it more user friendly and friction free. The tube vise is made very well and the machine overall has very good quality and hardware. So overall I do like it but would like to see a refined updated version with: bearing mounted armature with a pivot point a bit further back on the frame, a conrod in place of the touchy Scottish yoke, and an RCA clip would be nice.

Sage Oz, Thank you for the review on the Workhorse Rotary, I thought I would take a minute to address a few of the issues regarding the machine.

The linkage bar design seems a bit under designed to me, it's pretty touchy about the plastic screw that holds it in place. Too tight or loose and it binds needing a kick start. A bit annoying.

I can see how it may seem this way but alot of time and effort has gone into that design. It is a touchy adjustment initially because the nylon screw tends to flex back a tad bit after it is tightened. In reality, this is an adjustment that is needed very rarely, usually only after replacing parts.

Greasing it is a good idea as it has a lot of free floating plastic rubbing sporadically.

Please do not grease this area because the grease becomes a dust collector and will accelerate wear of the parts and ensure more "greasing" and maintenance. The materials used in this design are self lubricating and shouldn't require additional lubrication. Basically, once you grease or oil these moving parts, you will have to do so frequently unless you dis-assemble the machine and clean all of the grease off. If you feel the need to lubricate the parts, please use a dry teflon or graphite as it won't attract dust and debris into the moving parts.

So overall I do like it but would like to see a refined updated version with: bearing mounted armature with a pivot point a bit further back on the frame, a conrod in place of the touchy Scottish yoke

You can rest assured that Workhorse Irons only manufactures and sells top quality products and stands behind them. The machine will be refined based on customer feedback in the near future and has been a very successful initial release. It's only going to get better from here...

Thanks again for the feedback, this is how products are improved...

[G.Graves]

I've been using them for a month now, and I say "them" because I have two of them. I think they could be great machines in the near future, but right now I would not use another one right now. The resone I have two is because I wanted to make sure I didn't get a faulty machine. I was having issues with the motor changing speeds up and down on me while tattooing and I use a eikon ems400. Tried to line with it several times and could not get any clean passes.

The noise is another downer with the machine, all that plastic back there just kills it. I got the noise to die down allot by adding a simple grommet over the back on the carbon bar, made a huge difference. I made a video of it if anyone is want to see it? I personal think the back of the machine need to be redesigned and put in a solid bar, no carbon. I think the fact of putting give bars kills it for me. By this is only me personal thoughts about the machine.

One of the best looking machines in my eyes, but I can't get it to work for me. I sold one already and will be trading the other one soon. I saw the new machine, and would love to get my hands on one of those.

[linsner666]

got mine yesterday and tried it up today! nice lookin and pretty light machine!
first try.....all hell breaks loose at 6.5V!
so turned it dovn to 2V! yepp it sounds lousy and was damn loud!
but easy to fix! the problem was the loose plasticspacer in the mechanism! so i lubed it up a little with siliconegrease (ok brian wrote not to grease it cause of the dirt but better to clean it once a week and relube it before let it run dry)! and i placed a little piece of silikonehose to hold the spacer down in place! makes a BIG difference!!! go try it out!
finaly i put a o-ring around the machine, its not too hard to slow it down but enough to move the needle back when u stop the machine! and with that there is no dead-end-point so u dont have to "kickstart" it again!

made some pics for explaining! ;-)

[G.Graves]

^^^^ very nice, the only thing I didn't do the same was adding the print to keep the needle resting in the up position. Going to have to try that out. If anyone else want to give this machine a try, let me know and we can make a trade.

[linsner666]

lol.....didnt read your post!

[peter clements]

I've been using them for a month now, and I say "them" because I have two of them. I think they could be great machines in the near future, but right now I would not use another one right now. The resone I have two is because I wanted to make sure I didn't get a faulty machine. I was having issues with the motor changing speeds up and down on me while tattooing and I use a eikon ems400. Tried to line with it several times and could not get any clean passes.

It's no secret that I like clipcords, but recently I've bitten the bullit with RCA jacks, as I'm now convinced some rotaries perform far much better with them. Convert one of your workhorse machines to RCA and I'd be surprised if there isn't a great improvement-give it a go and report back