I may have talked about this elsewhere but i thought some of you may be interested in this as my first post here Jaz Dringenberg turned me on to the site
As most of you know the swinggate is a machine design that is usually attributed to bob shaw...as in the "bob shaw swinggate". I had always known it was a manifestation of THE PIKE but stumbled on some fascinating facts about it and its invention....
('the pike' a small area of long beach california like coney island for want of a better description)a few streets cedar way,chestnut place,seaside and at various times lots of tattoo shops or a few...Bert grimms,Leeroys,Long beach tattoo(the 1st one) the rose,seven seas,and alot of others)
nonetheless bob shaw has always been a hero of mine..he did my first tattoo when i was16....30.00 a hotstuff coverup(like hotstuff sitting on a cliff covering up my "led zep' handpoked" beaut".....i digress
recently I acquired all of Lou lewis's machine building stuff..(recently last 5 years)Lou was partners at times with ernie sutton and they had a small tattoo supply company they ran out of their main street shop called LOS ANGELES TATTOO SUPPLY i have a flyer from 53( this is a new computer i will try to post it)....basically they were taking Jonesys and reworking them...cutting the top of the sidewing off or all of the sidewing and rewinding the coils with 26g. wire for a smoother ride replating them etc....In fact that flyer is the firstttime i saw "handmade"...anyway they made really nice machines I have a few of them...Lou was doing some real trick shit with springs..he was doubling up front ones...and i have one that he used a super floppy front spring that has a gap smaller than a dime but a 3 mile throw.... another that the abar hits the top of both coils square and alot of them were I think his search for a better machine pre capicitor(73 ish) as if you collect old machines as i do you know what the feel is but some of his really run good... but that is another story
well i knew of lou lewis because leeroy always said he was the best tattooer on the pike.....so whenever i heard his name i would perk up and listen... sutton and lewis had a shop at 10 cedar way upstairs in the early 60s...fred thorton was partners with captain jim at the long beach tattoo..they called it "the other corner" lewis and suttons lease was up so fredthorton went to the landlord and'bought out" their lease...not an uncommon practice when tattooing was smaller....so Lou and ernie took all the plastic off the flash and house painted it filled the shitters with cement and left that to thorton... sutton moved back to downtown and Lewis went to work for Bert grimm.That is of big importance in the invention of the swinggate
bert grimms was always the flagship of the pike....and there were usually pairs of tattooers...I know it was opened in 27 and i know people like Lawson and red gibbons and charlie barr etc worked there before bert bought it....regardless the 60s had Zeke and lou working the nightshift and bert and bob working the day shift. later(70s) it was nolan and hongkong tom etc....
In 1964 the health department came in and told them due to a hepatitis out break that the sponge and bucket days was over....at the time the setups were four machines outliner black shader ,red and green machine....they wanted them changing tubes and inks etc....and they wanted them to start doing it yesterday
So lou who held various jobs everything from a customs agent and postal inspector to a machinist(thats the key) for the airplane companies during the war went home that night and came back with the swinggate design. I have a roundback jonesy that was one of the 1st from the collection of his i obtained which caused me to investigate this matter..i knew it was super early and real trick so.....)
It is a simple enough design and easy to put on...you do not even need to remove the coils....so that was the birth of the swinggate...in fact the swinggate we know now Bob Shaws..well the first runs were waters frames waters #2...the iron ones...they would cut off the back dual binders and half the vice and rechrome them....I have seen some that were never completely built and you could see the indent left on the back upright from the dual binders and the PW or W stamped on the inside of the front upright...I am not sure if they took old machines and reworked them or if bob shaw had a connection for abunch of waters frames...I am pretty sure waters died in 51 in anniston alabama but there may have been alot of NOS left....hard to say
Lou finished out his career at bert grimms...he died in 1969...so i figure with the relationship he had with shaw after his death it was natural that shaw kept the design.I also know alot of retired tattooers that tattooed on the pike that refer to tubevices simply as "gates"...so the impact is evident....There was a run of ASluminum jensens(jensen specials) that were swinggates....I do not know if there are 11 or 22 but jensen cast a tree of 22 with the specials...anyway those must have been made right after lewis died and jensen filled lewis chair before bert and him had a flling out and he finished his career at Leeroys....(the reason i mention this is jensen was a great machinist..he was Barbers machinsit that is why there is a Barber perfection machin pre jensen goping off on his own...different in design but same name..i think Baber was F. W. barber but i could be wrong, but obviously the swinggate was good enough for an old machinist like jensen to give it a whirl...
as a side not i inherited some of jensens machines and his engraver and springpunch from Bill mokry...when bill died. why i mention this is jensen was not using a swinggate at the time of his death he was sawing them back at least the ones i got that were his...some of you that were around Maaske when he was friends with leeroy probably know more about that then me and i am curious if there were any jensen swinggates(not aluminum... in the stuff erik was getting from Leeroy...so i do not know if that small run of jensen aluminums with the swinggate were just his "team' enthusiasm when hewas at grimms or truly though they were a winning design.
I also beleieve thats Zeke was the first guy making cutback liners...he was taking machines and hammering back the front and hammering forward the back and viola' instant cutback....I think lou lewis may have had a hand in that too..since they worked together at bert grimms.....but i will write about that later..when i have my photos hooked up here as examples
If you want to see Los angeles tattoo supply company machines they are floating around..they will have the modified sidewing but will be rechromed so it looks like it was cast that way....Masters in sandiego had alot of them a few years ago (tahiti felix)
I always had a hardtime with them as i am a jonesy freak and when i would come across one that was modified and rechromed i would have a hardtime believing they were jonesys....But through a little digging i found that Lou was buying them for 3 for 10.00(maybe cheaper if he was buying them unbuilt) and modifying them then reselling them for 10.00 and 12.00 bucks depending on the plating....also the other trick shit he was doing for that time period.... regardless I thought i would do this as my first post.
