guns from parts of other items they are allowed to possess. any small wire can be straightened out and made into a needle. you can get motors out of appliances, tape recorders, cameras. when we see tattoo guns in prison, it s usually after they have been confiscated by authorities. i got the ink, i ve got the tattoo needles, i ve got the motor, the tattoo gun, the barrel. it s all right here. but we met a pair of cellmates who were so eager to show off their contraband tattoo gun, they were willing to reveal its hiding spot. watch him, bro. i m watching. this is my tattoo gun. i plug it up to the tv. i plug this into the tv and this in to my gun and i take the ink pen with a sharpened staple, and tattoo it.
got a lot done. started the other night, you know what i mean. right there. you know what it is. i like the tattoos. i like the whole i like the whole process. i like the whole ritual of it, especially in prison. you know, sitting down, hanging out, you ve got the little radio going, you ve got your butt man, you know, watching out for you and you re sticking it to the man. there s more than one way to get prison tattoos. some methods are cruder than others. i got this tattoo done right here in the county. that was picked in with a staple. took ten hours. i had a guy from california do it, and it was pretty excruciating the way it had to go down. normal tattoos are done with surgical instruments. they re done in here with a sharpened staple, one dot at a time. so it took forever to do and it hurt really bad. other inmates craft sophisticated but illegal tattoo
they will hide it on top of the light fixture, under the stairs as well, in a toilet. they will find any little small opening that they know you won t find and they will put all of their contraband in there. hiding anything in jail where every area is subject to inspection at any time takes determination and creativity. just ask marcelo cardenas. this is one of the spots that we use for to hide the guns, the tattoo guns. i m just right now making one. cardenas, who is sharing his secrets because he is soon leaving for state prison and says he is not worried about punishment, has a clever technique for hiding his homemade tattoo guns. the process begins with another piece of contraband. a box hinge. this is my tool that we use to break the wall in by literally scratching it. in this case, since the hole is still small, cardenas demonstrates how he uses a bar of soap to conceal one of the magnets used in his guns, rather than the gun itself.
we rub the wire like this here. he winds the wire around the screw to make a crude electromagnet but he also needs a metallic magnet which is pilfered from a phone or speaker. the magnet, when you put it on top of the screw, it bounces with the cycles of the electricity. you bounce like this. the needle is made from a staple attached to a q-tip shaft. and then you use soft string to tie it up. that s pretty much how you do it. the magnet when it bounce, it push the needle. i don t invent it but i learn it. several other bexar county inmates also make their own tattoo guns or rigs, and the source of their knowledge could very well spring from just one man, jose hidalgo. early on in his incarceration he was teaching the other inmates how to create these tattoo rigs, how to do the tattoos, and as a result they
pulled it out. opened it up, tattoo. a catch like this is pretty rare. was a good catch, man. right here is from inside of a light, a staple. this right here is the same copper wire that came from the inside of the hair clippers and two checkers pieces to hold it together. these guys know what they re doing. another inmate marcelo cardenas is not a tattoo artist but has gained a reputation for crafting high-quality jailhouse tattoo guns. i rent the gun or i sell it, it goes for $30, $25 or $30 in this county right here. because he is due to leave the jail any day now to start his six-year prison sentence for assault, cardenas agreed to demonstrate how it s done. right now it s not like i really care about it. if they run me out, i m going to leave before they do punishment or the reprimand on me. cardenas starts with some wire scavenged from some electric hair clippers.