Homemade and Jailhouse Tattoos

**Dan S** · 03-08-2012

Thought it would be interesting to see and hear about "homemade", you know, the needle-wrapped-in-thread and ink variety tattoos, and about "jailhouse" work, be it single needle dipped in ink, guitar-string in a BIC pen barrel with a tape-player motor, or any other variant.

I still have a few that haven't been covered, and I've seen many, many really nice pieces come out of various joints. I will post some pics as soon as I can scrounge a better camera, and get permission form some of my Brothers to post pix of their work.

Anyone else have an interest in this? If not, Admins, please feel free to delete this!

**JAllen** · 03-08-2012

i like seeing prison tattoos. lots of times even when it's not anything great, there's still some cool stuff to be gleaned from them. whenever someone i'm coming in tells me that they got something in prison and show it to me, i'll ask if they have more and to show me. sometimes you get to see some tough looking tattoos and get ideas from them.

**Jack** · 03-09-2012

i have a shitty one from when i was 15, my gf was trying to poke her initials in me with a sewing needle and india ink, but she went too deep and got queasy when i started bleeding. haha. it's 3/4 of a K. Sooooooo lame. hahhaha

**Petri Aspvik** · 03-09-2012

I have the Wu-Tang logo, back when I was 15 :P Some kinda needle/s was melted in a piece of plastic and the ink was the ink from a ballpoint pen. I got it in a group home, sitting in my bed while other boy tapped it in. Cant remember how long it took. 1 hour?

I just realised its almost all worn out. Cant even see it. Had to look for it. Its "covered" with a bad cover up that didn't even cover it. Hate that fucking tattoo.

Funny, the tattoo artist asked me "what the fuck is this? A puzzle piece?" I said yeah, yeah... I was too nervous to explain him that is a Wu-Tang logo, and what the fuck the Wu-Tang even is while Jimi Hendrix was blasting from the speakers

**Kev Tijerina** · 03-09-2012

One of the better and probably most famous prison tattoos out there:

**Scott R** · 03-09-2012

I have/had 5 guitar string type tattoos. All have been covered but now that my laser sessions are breaking up you can see the old stuff coming back. this was like 91-92

**dcostello** · 03-09-2012

Danny Trejo... that is one legit dude.

**jade1955** · 03-09-2012

I had my knuckles tattooed when I was in reform school. Love and Hate.

They were tattooed at night, in between the patrols. Done with a single neeedle and some indian ink.

After I came out I had them surgically removed. So I've just got some faint scars.

If you want to see some incredible prison tattoos the Russian Criminal Tattoo books are a good read. The film The Mark of Cain is also well worth a watch, if you're into prison tattoos.