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Scott Sterling
The Bridge between Paul Rogers and Dringenberg, Cain and Ciferri is pure Sterling
By Shane Enholm
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"Scott often goes unmentioned during contemporary
discussions of tattoo machines.
Its an unfortunate over sight. He is a top
notch mechanic, and has a complete understanding
of what needs to happen to make a
machine do what needs done. His machines
have a direct influence on what I do now."
-- Brian Hibbard
Today there are more machine builders than ever before,
except maybe in the beginning of the 20th century, and I’d say
that ratio-wise machine builders to tattoo artists there were
as many then because years ago there was a basic need for
tattooers to build their own equipment (or at least be able to
deal with it when the occasion arose, and it did a lot.) We have
become spoiled with premade needles and ink dispersions,
meters on power supplies and all the many different machines.
There is a story that Doc Webb bought his first machines from
Charley Wagner and Wagner sent them to him in pieces. When
Doc Webb inquired via a letter to Wagner, Wagner responded
with “if you can not put it together maybe you shouldn’t have
it”. Very different then what we are seeing today or the last
ten years.
If you can follow the ratio theory there were also as many
people getting tattooed as there are now (until the depression
hit in 1929), percentage-wise with what the population was
then. A lot of reasons this is not known is l ack of personal
cameras, mass air travel, media television, etc…Now the
world spins faster than ever and things that would get lost
over a period of 60 years are now getting lost in 15; Scott
Sterling and his machines are one of those things where I see
this happening. He is one of the main links between the past
and “the now”, particularly in machine building, but also in our
trade as a whole.
I have been shocked more than once in the last few years to
hear that there are more than a few builders and a whole lot of
tattooers who do not know the name Scott Sterling. Of course
Scott is shocked when he hears that newer artists do not know
who Bob Shaw is, and that is shocking, true, but I find it harder
to believe that Scott Sterling is not a more common name
thrown around when it comes to todays tattooers.
Though on the other hand I must say Scott Sterling was cited
as often as Paul Rogers and Bill Jones as being the inspiration
of machine builders in Karl Marcs great HandMade trilogy- a
must have for all you younger machine builders and future
moguls.
Scott Sterling was doing machine seminars during the Tattoo
Tours of Dennis Dwyer and J. D. Crowe, (today Scott works
at Crowes shop), and the seats were always full. But
with the rise of the computer and the explosion of=2
0tattooing I see him more lost to the names of Ciferri
and Cain. And all due respect to them, without Scott
there would be no Ciferri and Cain. When one cites
Rollo’s (Mike Malone’s) machines, chances are they
are talking about Scott Sterling just as much as Rollo,
whether they know it or not. He was Rollo’s machine
building partner for a almost a decade...and the
best one, at least I think so and I am not alone
in that opinion. I have never seen anyone put as
much personal attention into every single machine
that left his hands or he had anything to do with
it be it rebuilding, tuning respringing etc….I
feel that is not so much the case anymore as
the volume of machines well known builders put out
would make it impossible for those builders to do what Scott did in
his machine building and I say that respectfully, but the time Scott
spent on his machines was focused on the running aspect of the
machine, though I have heard that he built Kandi Everett a shined
and buffed and engraved Des Connolly cast bulldog that could bring
tears to ones eyes. Another not so commonly known fact is during
his machine building partnership with Malone they split the work
between liners and shaders. Though that was not always the case,
chances are better than not that if you got a shader from them
Scott built it. But his prowess lies in either.
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