Some time ago, LEGO released a beautiful (and somewhat pricey) typewriter set that was modeled after one used by company founder Ole Kirk Kristiansen. To the disappointment of some, it doesn’t actually work—you can’t really write a letter with it. [Koenkun Bricks] decided to rectify this with their own functional design.

Right away, we’ll state that this is not a traditional typewriter. There are no off-the-shelf LEGO components with embossed letters on them, so it wasn’t possible to make bars that could leave an impression on paper with the use of an inked ribbon. Instead, [Koenkun Bricks] decided to build a design that was LEGO all the way down, right to the letters themselves. The complicated keyboard-actuated mechanism picks out flat letter tiles and punches them on to a flat LEGO plate, creating a plastic document instead of a paper one.

It’s not perfect in operation. It has some issues unique to its mode of operation. Namely, the round letter tiles sometimes rotate the wrong way as they’re feeding through the typewriter’s mechanisms, so you get sideways letters on your finished document. It looks kind of cool, though. Outside of that, sometimes the letter pusher doesn’t quite seat the letter tiles fully on the document plate.

Overall, though, it’s a highly functional and impressive build. We’ve seen some other great DIY typewriters before, too, like this 3D printed build.

[Thanks to hn3000] for the tip!]