Hi Westley,,
Thank you for your reply,,
Yes you are correct about Ron not doing the machining himself.
and a lot of the first ones were actually made from aluminium which
he felt were a lot lighter ( and Cheaper )than the stainless ones :-)
I think i put a few of them together myself!
and also we were not able to do like a ( gold plating to the ally ones)
they needed to be at least plain steel to be plated.
and then the stainless ones.
I still have my main 1x mini machine (that i did tattoo myself with at the time )
I was Introduced to Ron early to mid Nineties by a friend on mine
( Ian of Reading from reading,,)
He heard i was Looking for some help in my shop i had opened in Aldershot
a Military Town at the time and Ron showed up at the door with his walking stick
Back in those days in England we still had Massive walk in Ques of People just lining up
outside of the shop.
And in late 1997/98,, Ron suggested i fly out to for a working holiday to New York :-)
( it was still illegal to tattoo in a lot of the states at that time.
I went to work in a shop on 206 South Broadway New Rochelle Yonkers at a place called Mozquito Tattooz :-)
Ron gave me,,well sold me a load of his machines to sell while i was out there.
We did go to a supply company quite local so it might of even been your supply shop that
I visited while was out there !
The guy who owned mosquito tattooz had to take me round various shops
on a Friday to sell them machines (as they never had any money on a monday morning apparently :-)
that was in downtown Manhatten i think/ mcDougal street
with the tiny thin narrow types of shops,, Cool Times :-)
And then when i came home 97/98
I opened a shop up in Fleet Hampshire
Close Enough for Ron to Commute to from Portsmouth
and from then on we were like Father and Son
He Loved coming to the shop to tattoo and drink all the Milky tea i could make him,,
and I would also Look After His every needs from customers
I was a Bodybuilder at the time so no one ever gave us
Any Shit !!!! ;-)
Ron also a Lot of other Passions outside of tattooing,,
He used to play in a Trumpet in a Brass Band.
To Be Continued......
Regards Joe