It looks the business, can’t wait for mine to arrive in early May 🤞🏼 hope it’s better than my flux max, glad Chris got his hands on one and took the time to do this video, I trust his opinion 100%
I kinda don’t like pen machines I got a dragonhawk v2s and a grip that takes needle cartridges and the thing just lines so much better and I love the feeling of an old traditional tattoo machine
It's not perfect, tell critical we need to be able to open the machine to clean the drive bar and machine body. The power wand can be opened easier it seems . It's the only thing they haven't addressed we all know it's a big issue would have been cool for critical to tackle that to. Good review I still want it lol
I went with the 4.2 and it shades so well color packs and lines great but even with the long stroke it shades surprisingly well oh and btw the came out with coils ages ago the wires were hidden in the frame it was sick
Mi deve arrivare la 4.2 ma non so se ho fatto un buon acquisto… vorrei vedere che sfumature velate riesce a fare e che linee grandi riesce a ottenere con questa macchina. Speriamo bene .
I wish machine companies would be more open about showing their motor and machine specs so you can actually compare the machines. I don't think these are a big upgrade if you already own a nova unlimited or bishop or any other dildo tat machine. Great first buy perhaps, I have heard the 3.5 feels like a mix of bishops shader and packer.
I wouldn’t say it feels like a mix of the shader/packer. It’s a 3.5mm stroke so I can see why people would think that as essentially all 3.5mm strokes will feel similar. It’s a nice machine that does what it’s advertised to do.
@@ThatTattooShow What do they advertise it as? Because they have advertized it differently a few times. a 3.5mm brushless motor, sounds a bit like a shader and packer to me. People say it has a lot more torque than the shader for instance so maybe hence they're calling it a combo of the 2.
I love the settings...the run time and how u can put in the hourly rate and it'll just automatically do the math accordingly. I think the case is a cool feature but wonder how much extra it's costing me in thr 1200$? I wish they had a few more stroke options, though the 3.5 performs like other 3.2's just as well and can still pull a line if needed. It's very good but I don't know...not ready to call it the BEST yet.
I have one battery like that. Lines on the screen and weird glitches. But it doesn’t affect the battery itself (just looks horrid!). We’ll reach out to Crtitical and see what we can find out. Might be a bad early batch or something like that. Stay tuned and we’ll chat about it on the podcast soon 👍
That all depends on what you are using it for. If you want a black and grey specific machine then I’d say the bishop shader. If you want something that’s a good all rounder go for the torque.
Get the sol nova unlimited 5.0, I have both the packer and shader from bishop and those machines arent good for actual pepper shading even though u see some big artists use them for it. It's just marketing. Sol nova can go to 25hz and has a big hit still, while the powerwands start at 4.5v, the sol nova starts at around 4 but is even slower than that in reality.
@@JOKE485 sol nova is 25hz at lowest. Did some pepper shading with a 11.30 round shader and it was like working with 3l but faster. Barely had to grazed the skin to have a great effect.
@@vincent-5886 Yea, the nova is great. I'm using my roys more currently but It's a day and night difference compared to the packer or shader or other pen style machines. They go too fast and don't have a consistant hit for pepper shading to work like that.
@@x_z0mb1_xdo you mean we are supposed to wait one year to open it for cleaning the bar? That's sound really dumb -___- I did it once a month with my packer wand
@@ThatTattooShow grip fits so bad on the machine it wobles, motor has no consistency and rattles like there is no tomorrow, usb is very susceptible to get damaged, button is poorly designed so it will stop machine when lowering voltage etc. Plus the finish makes it non sticking to barrier. For that price (most expensive pen along with 1 battery on the market) it's a scam
@@ThatTattooShow I think people are flipping out because the battery is non replaceable or only manufacturer replaceable. To be honest that’s a problem unless it’s very high mah. At 1800+ mah you’d still have 60% battery at 5-6 years which isn’t perfect but could be justified as a reasonable maintenance and replacement battery with the manufacturer considering it would have 4-5 hours run time after 60% capacity depletion
Hey guys, how would you compare this pen with bishop power wand (packer)? The whole package looks similar so it's not a debate. What wonder me the most is the motor and it's specs.
Tks for the review Chris, I really hesitate to invest in this machine (4.2mm) as my daily is the Stigma Rotary Force 4.5mm, I know that you tested the 3.7mm Stigma Force and wonder how you feel between these 2 machines. As I'm mainly doing 3rl tattoos, the Stigma Force is the most precise fineliner I worked with (even better than Wands for me). I was about to buy a 2nd Stigma Force 4.5mm, but now... I'm lost. Lol
Great review, matey. Lovely looking machine, can’t debate that. Outside of the swanky UI and vibration absorption, isn’t it essentially a reskinned Bishop Power Wand, Chris? Bishop and Critical are owned by the same company after all. Given I have the Power Wand Liner and the Prophet from ai tenitas, I’ll be curious to see how well the Torque sells given it sits in the same stratospheric price bracket as the Wand while the Prophet is half the price and performs VERY well side by side. Oh, and the Prophet’s Panasonic batteries (also used by Cheyenne) cost about 15Euro to replace, while a new Critical battery on the Wand Liner (and the Torque) is gonna set me back a couple of hundred. I’ll watch on from the shadows… 😊
Honestly I thought that going into it. Is it just a bishop with a different outer case. After using both bishop and this torque three certainly a difference in how the machines run. Also I was rather blunt in asking the question is it just a reskinned bishop. According to what they have said it’s not. The machine internals are different according to critical. Each to their own though. If you can do awesome work with ai-tenitas then happy days as they are very nice machines.
Just some ruminating on why some of these features are ending up being what machines are starting to “focus” their terminology on. It’s about ease of “skin pop”. How easily does a machine “pop” like a balloon, the thin resistant film of epidermis even at low hrz/rpm/voltage I think the big clue here is Critical’s attention to the term “torque” and the “rigidity” of their drive. Other features that address this. Forward/center mass, thus the FK front heavy grips. But anything not weighted in the back is more “torque” for “skin pop” And old school coil “slap” thus the rise of the Dan Kubin rotary hybrid. It’s like a towel snap pap, pap!! Also, tatsoul steel cartridges, they are more “ridged”, it’s all sounding more similar. Because we all want good skin pop.
So far I haven’t come across anything that’s a con for me and I’ve been using it along side a lot of machines and even done some tattooing on myself to see how it felt.
@@ThatTattooShow what about the sanitization of the jelly ? We know ink can go in some places we don't want to even with membranes, barrier etc. What about the acrylic motor housing window, which is very sensitive (and porous) after some cleaning wipes ? The advertising on this is huge because of the big consortium selling it (critical, bishop, tatsoul, barber etc etc), but beside some fancy color display, what does it offer no other machine has to offer ? Any give ? Any sensi mode or something like ai-tenitas ? Anything that changes the duty like the neuma 4, or even adjustable stroke lenght ? I am trying to be constructive, deconstructing the massive advertizing and the "new machine it's a 15 day grail" phenomena. But any machine in the hand of an artist of your experience would product good result. So is there really anything worth (beside the case which is a great plus imo) puting 1.2k on this. Is there a 1.2k difference with a flux or a wand etc ? Thank you for the review and the awesome quality of the whole clip. Best regards
If you are using appropriate IPC procedure, using the correct cleaning fluids and barrier any machine appropriately then you shouldn’t have any issues. The gel is easy to clean just like the machine body and the way it’s designed has no exposure. If any ink did get on it then it would be no different than you getting it on the actual motor body it’s self, therefore cleaning it appropriately is adequate. Tattooing is an “aseptic” procedure which means the only piece that needs to be sterile is the part that makes direct contact with broken skin. In the case of all pen machines that would be the safety cartridge. I’ve checked with environmental health experts and they have advised the following. If upon each use of a pen machine, you clean it before use then you barrier the pen machine in an appropriate manner, use a membrane cartridge and take care in how you handle the cartridges. There is very little chance of internal contamination. If however some ink or fluids get on the grip or internals of the machine. Cleaning it with the appropriate cleaning fluids is sufficient. They went on to explain that when using standard needles and grips, the whole grips and stems would need to be clean and sterilised is due to them making direct contact with broken skin. They also leave you open to far more contamination, even if you bag the machine that leaves the machine body open to being contaminated via particles going up the stem into the machine bag. People just wipe down the machines and that’s been a perfectly acceptable practice to do for years. So if using a pen machine and you put all the measures in place to mitigate contamination they are far more safer to use, the only real way you will get internal contamination is either using non membrane carts, a cart breaks and fluid goes up inside or if you are a dirty bugger and aren’t handling the cartridges in a manner that mitigates the potential for contamination. . E-give, give, sensi mode is not exactly essential and you have to consider that a tattoo machine is a tool designed to do a job. This machine has been designed to work in the way they want it to work. If you want e-give or sensi mode etc then just simply buy a machine that offers those. If you want a tool that’s designed to do a job and hasn’t got things it doesn’t need then get the critical. I think with machines like these it comes down to efficiency, yes I could achieve the same effect with multiple machines, but… I may be faster with one machine compared to another, being faster, more efficient etc means in able to do more work and make more more money. As for comparing it to the flux etc. I will be doing a comparison video going through the features of all machines. Genuinely though it’s a great machine to use and I’ve been using it daily since I’ve had it even tattooed myself twice and it’s very comfortable. Also on the topic of pen machines, I’ve been tattooing for 20 years and using pen machines since the hawk pen came out. I’ve never had an issue with internal contamination in the entire time I’ve been using them. I’ve lent a machine to someone who got it contaminated and that was due to them using t-tech cartridges and not wrapping the machine correctly. So it shows that following correct IPC will help reduce any risks. But we also have to remember that we tattoo using non sterile gloves, non sterile ink caps, non sterile cling film, non sterile paper towels.
@@ThatTattooShow for me the timer feature, the color display and the Green lantern on motor housing are not "tools for a job" and absolutely not mandatory. I've been tattooing for 14 years only and used cheyenne the day hawk thunder came out when I was a "retard to use that toy of a machine" as the other tattoo artist in my town enjoyed to tell me at the time. In 13 years I had multiple membrane breaks from different brands (specially on 4+ mm stroke pen) Motor body of the torque has some Acrylic part to display the motor which is purely cosmetic and whatever you use on it will make it porous. PMMA is sensitive to a lot of chemical disinfectant like chlorexidine etc. I have no issue puting 1.5k in a machine, just the overly massive advertising on a product that offers nothing more / better is pure non sense.
Which is something I’ve been doing. Although human error can sometimes means people forget. Having a built in timer is more accurate and removes any human error. That being said you can’t please everyone lol.
@@ThatTattooShow i use timer on my critical power supply from day one. it is the best thing for me and for customer as well. nice review, i hope they are in eu soon. i still prefered cable on my bishop,(the balance is better for me and im terrible with charging things...my tablet will tell stories 😄) but i give a try to the full box from critical.
