I'll start with Pulse Tattoo Machines' description from their website for the Septa Shader tattoo machine: "Our Septa shader has been designed and built to give the feel and performance of an old school iron. Made from a billet of C10-18 cold rolled steel, and then heat treated, the Septa runs like an iron machine. Fitted with 3/8” coil cores, it creates a very strong magnet. We set it up with stiff springs, for a solid hard hitting shader, that will pack the color in. Will run everything from a 5 mag up. Old school sensibility, mixed with new school precision. Black oxide finish, choose 8 or 10 wrap coils."

I believe they nailed it in their description . The Septa is a great shader tattoo machine that can run pretty much any setup you put in it. I used it as is from Pulse for the first year I had it, then being the way I am I had to customize it. I replaced the front and rear binders, deck plate, and the pivot vice with copper pieces. I wrapped the coils with dollar bills with the all seeing eye with the pyramid facing forward on the front coil ( a theme that runs with almost all of my tattoo machines). I decided to try to get a distressed vintage look so I hit the machine frame with some light grit sand paper. I put it all back together with 18g front and back springs , but what I noticed when i replaced the A-bar with a "standard" A-bar from Pulse when I was lining up the front of the A-bar with the alignment tool there was a small amount of the screw slot hanging out from the deck clamp. I spoke with Tim Brewer about this and for certain frames you should purchase the "cutback" A-bar which i thought was for cutback liners, when in actuality it is not "cutback", it is drilled back further. It's been like that for sometime and I'm sure that it will snap the spring at some point but its been a year and its still running strong. Another gripe (if it could even be construed as that ) is the screws Pulse uses on their tattoo machines. I have had problems with them stripping fairly easy, so I switched them out for cap head screws on almost everything on the machine except for the coil screws. My final issue as I have heard many artist's gripe is with the pivot vice system. I plan on tapping the existing hole to a 8/32 so i can do a coin topped screw for a true vintage feel. I run a fairly large point gap that allows for pushing anywhere from a 7mags to a 15mags, althought I usually run 13 mags and 15mags exclusively with this tattoo machine. The gap is a little over 2 nickels worth, i run it at about 10 volts (I don't have a fancy digital readout power supply yet so I cannot supply you with any more info then that). It runs smooth and consistent for all sorts of tattooing applications. I work mainly in color and this tattoo machine packs that ink right in there, washes go in great and whip shading is super consistent. My few gripes aside, I think the Septa tattoo machine is a solid hard hitting workhorse that i use on a daily basis. I love it so much i just purchased a second one from a co-worker .Brett, Tim, Jessica, Katie, Melissa , Alex and Joe are all wonderful people that I will gladly support , as they have the passion for tattooing built with integrity that I hold dear to my heart. BenReigle.com