Builder portrait

Electric Soul: fifteen years of reels, a 3D-printed printing press

Posted by Solutat · Builder Profile

In Lancaster, California, T Massari spent a large part of his life making coil machines by hand. When the market shifted, he didn’t buy ready-made parts to follow the trend: he relearned his craft differently, through 3D printing. The Coffin Rotary was born from that.

Photo credit: Electric Soul Tattoo

A tattoo artist before being a builder

T Massari has been tattooing since 2003, which is nearly twenty-five years in the business. His studio, Electric Soul Tattoo, opened in Lancaster in 2005, recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary. His tattooing has an American Traditional flavor, but he touches on many styles, with a professed preference for clean pieces and lettering. His guiding principle can be summed up in one sentence: solid lines, and shading that is as smooth and even as possible.

This is important to understand for what follows: Electric Soul is not a brand conceived by a design office. It is equipment designed by someone who tattoos every day, to solve their own problems as a tattoo artist.

The era of reels: fifteen years of handmade

In 2007, T teamed up with Brad Swinson, a seasoned machine builder. Electric Soul Tattoo Machines was born. For about 15 years, the duo sold thousands of handmade 100 % coil machines all over the world.

And «handmade» really means handmade: frames cut, milled, welded and ground by hand, binders and reinforcement bars shaped one by one, coil cores cut and coils wound by hand. They even made their own contact screws from copper wire. An obsession with detail inherited from a simple principle, repeated to T since childhood: if you do something, do it to the best of your ability.

Photo credit: Electric Soul Tattoo

When the market turns

Over the years, sales of coil machines slowed down. Many manufacturers then started assembling ready-made parts. T and Brad, for their part, were not comfortable with this idea: their trade was making everything, not assembling. Rather than betray this way of working, they closed the machine workshop. Brad moved to Arkansas.

As for him, he stayed in California. Still behind his machine, always trying to figure out how to do better.

The Coffin Rotary: the coil translated into rotary

The breakthrough came from an annoyance in the field: T was tired of setting up three or four machines for a single piece. A liner, a shader, a mag for color... For every tattoo, the same setup ritual. He tried high-end pens, but many run on a single stroke and their «pancake» motor lacks the power to pack in heavy lines with a round shader. And he preferred the feel of a tube and grip.

So he got into 3D printing to make the machine he wanted. After fifteen years of coils, the hardest part was done: it was mainly about converting what he liked in a coil into electric motor revolutions. He looked for the right motor, then added an adjustable cam. Result: the Coffin Rotary, and a stroke adjustable by hand from 1 to 5 mm, without tools—whereas most machines are locked into a single stroke, often around 3.6 mm, or cap out at 4.2 mm.

Photo credit: Electric Soul Tattoo

On the manufacturing side, the Coffin Rotary is printed from a durable material, with a carbon fiber-infused frame and vise. It can be cleaned with disinfecting wipes without fear of damaging the finish, and weighs about 100 grams: making it one of the lightest machines on the market. Its Japanese-brand motor is rated to run up to 30 volts; in everyday use, only a fraction of that is utilized. This is enough to slam in bold lines or pack color, or drop the voltage and stroke for soft lines and very smooth shading.

Four models, one same DNA

The Coffin Rotary comes in four models. The OG is the original version. The C2 adopts a linear armature bar motion and works just as well with cartridges as it does with old-school needle bars—some prefer it precisely for that reason. The C3 completes the range, and T also offers numerous colors as well as custom parts.

Photo credit: Electric Soul Tattoo

Each machine is printed, inspected, and assembled by T himself. He embodies the word: perfectionist. And he always keeps stock in all colors.

Beyond the machine: an entire ecosystem

The machine is the heart of Electric Soul, but T doesn't stop there. He also makes his own reinforced RCA cords, adapters, and pedals. Around this, he has developed his own line of consumables: cartridges designed «true to needle bar size»—a needle grouping as sharp as a well-soldered bar, to avoid thin, shaky lines—and grips, manufactured to his specifications.

Photo credit: Electric Soul Tattoo

The ensemble outlines the coherence of a builder who constructs their entire workstation, from the motor to the needle, rather than an isolated product.

Why We're Talking About It at Solutat

Electric Soul is the story of craftsmanship that doesn’t disappear—it transforms. Fifteen years of handmade spools didn’t vanish the day the market changed: they were reinvested in a lightweight, versatile 3D-printed rotary press. This is exactly the kind of continuity that Solutat loves to document—a tradition that is passed down, not a break with the past.

He is also an independent builder who still makes things by hand, in his own workshop. The kind of work that deserves to be seen before it becomes obvious to everyone.