HOW WE CAME TO BE... VALKNUT

So where to begin... 

Valknut was born out of sheer exasperation at the cost to quality ratio of top tier machines, that seemed to offer the promise of a revolutionised feature, offering us all the performance and technological advances that we wanted, to make our lives and jobs as tattooists easier, and more enjoyable, 

Being a tattooist myself and owning a studio with my wife, we invested heavily in new machines as and when they came out. Often I've had 4 of whatever machine was current at the moment, and that seemed to be the new next best thing! Partly, as I always believe in having back ups and also I like to set up a few groupings for large pieces, only issue being, they cost around £1000-£1500 each…. And well before the warranty was out all but one or two developed a fault for various reasons (none our fault) the support was nil or useless, and I began to wonder….

It’s also worth mentioning that any time a machine came out that promised to be the holy grail, I bought it only to find it was hyped up and failed to deliver anything new, and often felt like a step backwards. Often I had to adapt my own technique heavily to try and get the best out of my brand new machine, this led me to complete frustration as I could no longer just tattoo in an instinctive way, I was finding many things needed reworked or a different approach. Bending my own learned skills and habitual techniques to fit a machine, this made my technique suffer every time I bought a new machine. This is genuinely the most stressful part of tattooing I've ever put myself through! Machine hopping is NOT the way forward!

Before tattooing, I was an offshore mechanical engineer, 11 years working on turbine engines, Siemens, and Rolls Royce turbines mostly, This made me think…. essentially a tattoo machines primary function is to make the needle go up and down, so, I began to wonder what makes a machine worth £1500 or one worth half that or even less… how different are these machines?

So, I set off on a mission, I had every machine going and usually multiples of any that did their job. I’ve taken apart machines that cost me a small fortune, and I took apart cheaper machines that I got online. As expected the cheap machines weren’t up to much and the crucial internal components were made poorly and never intended as a professional tool, HOWEVER…… both the cheap machines and the expensive ones shared many parts or indeed on par components which was a surprise, this was an eye opener for me.

After my findings and feeling a little cheated that my super expensive machine wasn’t any prettier internally than the cheap ones it made me consider….. can I buy a readily available shell to keep costs down and then retro fit it with some industry standard components and then some clever custom performance parts and what do we have? We have possibilities…..

Years ago, in the experimental days when I had no idea if my idea would take off, I bought cheap machines and tore them down, put the magic into them, i.e custom motor amongst other things.  Then, I would  see if it was any good. The feedback was great! Now everything is custom made, so then I set about making things more official and professional, many revisions and many machine versions later we have the loved Valknut we have now. It was my friend Noddy Goffin who video called me in the early experimental days that gave me the push to keep going…. He said, “Bro...  this thing is epic!...  What the f**k is in this thing... From that day on its been progression and advancements.

There were definitely times where I felt like giving up, the pressure in the beginning felt immense and truthfully I didn’t cope as well as I would have liked , however that’s when support came from the most unlikely place, in the form of my now dear friend Dor Stocker. We didn’t know each other and when I hit a low point with my health and things hadn’t gone to plan Dor was there for me and took the time to make me whole and since then we have been the best of friends and I’ve been able to support in return, Dor gave me my best and most favourite tattoo, Valknut love and strength in action and now the uniting force of many.

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I was tired of getting told “you get what you pay for!” Only to have big industry profit from my values of buying the best I can. Only to have my premium machines die on me very early on and need sent back to the other side of the world and take 3-6 months to be fixed if they didn’t get lost in the process! Under performance from the moment I unwrapped them was also a really big let down. Being from an engineering background I always look after my equipment and that made no difference to the longevity or function of the premium machines. They seemed to just have a big price tag and nothing to back it up. Maybe I could do this after all...?

So, many hours of learning CAD and other associated softwares and making trade connections in countries all over the world seeking the best value and quality balances, some failed designs that didn’t make it to production and some that did, many versions of the Valknut have been released, each time improvements were made, some subtle and some very prominent. Always striving to produce the best operational machine I can, that gives you its all from the moment you start it,

Many machines I’ve spent significant money on are “down clocked” to give you sub par performance BUT usually meaning the machine hopefully lasts until the warranty runs out…. This is a clever industry trick.

Valknut doesn’t do this, Valknut gives 100% from day one,  maximum output, until it cant give anymore. 

I’m honoured to be putting some of the fun back into tattooing,  I love our ever growing community,

Valknut is for the artists, by the artists, now and always.

We do our best so you can exceed yours x

Viva la Valknut.