Alecsteele

Alec Steele discovered blacksmithing at the age of 11 and immediately fell in love with the craft. Over more than 15 years he taught himself metalworking, forging blades, tools, and art pieces, and documented the entire journey on YouTube — a rare long-form record of someone growing from a young hobbyist into a professional smith.

Alec Steele is based in Norfolk, England, which he namechecks directly in his Instagram bio as a Norfolk blacksmith and maker. The majority of his forge and shop content is filmed from his UK workshop, though he also travels internationally to document metalworking traditions elsewhere.

The Re-Restoring the Steam Hammer series is one of Alec Steele's most ambitious ongoing projects, following his efforts to fully rebuild a vintage steam-powered forge hammer. The series has run to at least eleven documented parts, with Alec walking viewers through every mechanical challenge, repair decision, and setback along the way.

Yes — Alec Steele has filmed content in Italy, specifically in Tuscany, as part of his channel's broader exploration of craft and industrial metalworking. His posts tagged with #italy and #tuscany indicate visits to Italian workshops or heritage sites, consistent with his wider interest in documenting smithing traditions around the world.

Alec Steele dedicated a full YouTube episode to tracking down what is believed to be the oldest surviving power hammer in the world. The video reflects his signature approach of blending hands-on smithing with industrial history, turning the search for obscure machinery into compelling documentary-style content.

Alec Steele has been blacksmithing for well over 15 years, having picked up the craft at age 11. His YouTube channel spans that entire journey, making it one of the longest continuously documented apprentice-to-professional arcs in the maker and craft space on the platform.

PCBWay is a printed circuit board prototyping and manufacturing service that regularly partners with hands-on engineering and fabrication creators, not just pure electronics channels. Alec Steele's audience skews heavily toward older male makers and engineers — exactly the demographic that PCBWay targets with custom-component sponsorships.

Alec Steele's recent sponsors include Squarespace, Drink LMNT, MeUndies, PCBWay, and Saily. The mix reflects the broad maker-and-engineering profile of his audience, ranging from everyday lifestyle brands to niche fabrication tools and services.

The #daily_steele tag appears across Alec Steele's posts and points to a more frequent, diary-style output that runs alongside his longer project series. It gives his audience a closer look at the day-to-day rhythm of life as a working blacksmith, separate from the polished multi-part restoration builds.

Alec Steele's YouTube channel has grown to well over three million subscribers, placing him firmly in the Macro creator tier. His engagement rate runs substantially above the category average, which points to an unusually loyal and active community for a craft-focused channel of that size.