Lucas Dul tinkers in a windowless workshop, his machines heaped on shelves — some pristine, some tucked away in their original leather cases, others mere carcasses.
So many, he has lost count.
The nail on his left thumb is shattered, from when a piece of hardware fell on it a few weeks back. But otherwise, his hands are unblemished — 23-year-old hands devoted to a technology most probably consider all but extinct: the typewriter.
Dul, who works out of his parents’ Downers Grove basement, tells another story. He has repaired hundreds of typewriters since, at age 14, he picked up a 1930s Royal No. 10 in an antique shop and tried to fix it.
And there are so many more that need screws, springs and rubber pieces replaced — or whole mechanisms rebuilt.
“Even full-time is not enough to cater to the need that’s out there. I have a backlog 70-people deep. Sixty machines sitting behind you — every single one of them needs work,” says Dul.
Typewriters wait to be repaired at Lucas Dul’s home in Downers Grove. Dul has become an expert at repairing typewriters and has a backlog of 70 orders from across the United States.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Artists, writers, collectors — all still want typewriters, he says.
Dul is more than a fixer. He’s a romantic. A purist. A crusader of sorts — an island in a digital ocean.
“It’s also about ultimate control. You are not being told what to do by any operating system. You don’t have to worry about spellcheck or making errors. It’s a process that’s completely in your hands and organic,” says Dul, who cherishes the time he spends alone in his workshop.
A Royal typewriter waits for repair at Lucas Dul’s home in Downers Grove.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
The typewriter is also a cure for “digital burnout,” he says.
Richard Polt, a professor of philosophy at Xavier University in Cincinnati, writes about the “surprising second life of typewriters,” in his 2015 book, “The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist’s Companion for the 21st Century.“
Polt says many of those who collect and use the machines these days weren’t even born when typewriters were in wide use.
“It’s a very wide variety of people, and they’re doing all sorts of creative things — not only writing, but decorating the typewriters and making music with them, making art with them and connecting them to digital devices. ... But what they all have in common is that they’re interested in exploring non-digital technology,” Polt says.
As a child, Dul liked the feel of machinery and pulling things apart to see how they work.
“I just always loved doing things with my hands,” he says.
Typewriter apprenticeships have gone the way of the VCR, the 8-track machine. So Dul taught himself how to repair the machines. He repaired his own, those belonging to friends. He began to see the wider need for his talents.
He found others like him — in Tampa Bay, Philadelphia — people who love the thrum and clack of the machines. He jokingly calls his fellow fixers a “secret underground world.”
Dul’s workshop reflects his old soul: His deeply gouged work bench, complete with solid-wood clamps, should probably be in a museum. His drill is the hand-cranked variety. And he owns a copper-headed mallet that looks like something unearthed during a Viking artifact dig (it’s gentler on steel parts, he says).
The many tools that Dul uses to repair typewriters, including, far left, a copper-headed mallet. The softer metal helps Dul avoid denting the steel parts of typewriters.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
And then there are the typewriters — defiantly un-sleek machines, their stair-step keys, levers and ribbon spools inviting curious eyes and fingers. None is quite like the other.
Dul points to a model built about 100 years ago by The Oliver Typewriter Co., at one time headquartered in downtown Chicago, that wouldn’t look out of place on a steam-punk-themed movie set. It is dusty, rust-spotted and clunky. It’s claim to fame: “bat wing” shaped type bars that strike the ribbon and paper from above.
At the time, the manufacturer bragged the machine was “a marvel of beauty, speed and easy action.”
A 100-year-old Oliver typewriter, with “bat ear”-type bars — one of Lucas Dul’s many vintage models.
Stefano Esposito/Sun-Times
Another machine, a 1930s Hammond Multiplex, has a circular type shuttle that pops out and allows the user to replace the individual English language pieces of type with Hebrew, Arabic and a host of other languages. Besides being an inventor, James B. Hammond was a Civil War newspaper correspondent.
“This (typewriter) is absolutely brilliant and Hammond’s story is brilliant as well — his company caught fire. His brother tried to steal it. All kinds of crazy stuff,” Dul says.
J.R.R. Tolkien owned Hammond typewriters.
The typewriters in Dul’s workshop include an Omega II, a gift from the actor Tom Hanks, who has recently been donating his own machines to repairmen all across the United States in an attempt to de-clutter.
Dul has worked on machines dating back to the 1880s all the way up to those few that are still being made today.
His average charge, he says, is about $350 per job.
A book written by Lucas Dul on everything about typewriter is photograhed at his home. At the young age of 23, Dul has become an expert in repairing typewriters.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
He’ll repair your typewriter, even if you only want it to look pretty on the shelf. But, he says, typewriters were built for a purpose: to work. He rejects the idea that the machines are slow or inefficient.
“I can type over 100 words a minute,” he says, his fingers a blur as he attacks the keys of an Olympia SGI De Luxe.
He also wrote a book a year or so ago about his favorite typewriter, the Williams.
Did he write the book on a typewriter?
“No, I wrote it on a computer because I’m lazy,” he says.
Dul’s customers include David Brechbiel, 65, a web designer who lives in Indiana. He started collecting typewriters in 2015 and now owns about 250, most of which he has on display in his basement.
“I call it my own personal museum,” Brechbiel says.
He estimates there are half a dozen or so typewriter repairmen across the entire Midwest. Dul has worked on about a dozen of Brechbiel’s machines.
A typewriter’s keys recall a nostalgic, earlier time. Lucas Dul has a thriving typewriter repair business in Downers Grove.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
“I know that if I give it to Lucas, he will find a way,” said Brechbiel, describing Dul as “topnotch” and an “old soul.”
Dul is an exceedingly bright young man. He has an associate of arts degree, but most of his learning has come from reading. People ask him why he hasn’t pursued advanced degrees.
“That’s not going to help me out in life,” he says. “I don’t really care about the university I went to. I just want to do my own thing.”
His “own thing,” he says, involves finding a brick-and-mortar location where he would have both his workshop and could display vintage typewriters for sale.
Though he “appreciates the headspace of being alone at times,” he says he sees the benefits of being able to display his wares and talk to like-minded people.
“As shops are closing, I’m trying to open one up,” he jokes. “It’s a great business model.”
To learn more about Dul and his work, go to typewriterchicago.com.