ARC MAGAZINE

Steel Willed & Starry Eyes

Alec Steele follows his heart, takes risks and occasionally breaks the rules. Despite pleas from teachers and family, Steele left high school to pursue his love of blacksmithing. With no investors or capital, he turned his hobby into a viable business.

It’s been a gamble, but a gamble that has paid off. At 21, an age when most blacksmiths are only beginning the long journey toward perfecting their craft, Steele is at the top of his game.

“It’s a big decision to make at a young age,” Steele says of leaving school at 16 and going to work full time. “My parents explained how much better off I’d be if I finished school. It wasn’t a case of, ‘This whole school thing is terrible.’ I just really wanted to do blacksmithing.”

Five years after that decision, Steele is breathing new life into an age-old craft. He’s a whiz on the forge, has a cheery personality, toils countless hours in his workshop, and spends his free time devouring books about business.

Click on his YouTube channel and you’ll see Steele at home in his industrial space lined with British and American flags representing the two countries he loves. It’s the backdrop for a frenetic Steele, who scribbles math calculations on the fly and does all the heavy lifting, pounding, hammering, heating and creating – always with a smile. Steele offers tutorials on bladesmithing while he makes steel swords and other ancient weaponry. He shares his intensity, enthusiasm, “mistakes and stupidity” in the name of education and viewership.

As Steele entertains online viewers – his channel has about 1.6 million subscribers – he pulls back the curtain exposing the imperfect process of building.

“It’s trial and error and learning,” he says. “It is not only extremely normal in my workshop, its normal in most workshops. My job isn’t to be the perfect craftsman. My job is to show people how to create things.”

His typical viewers love metal working and blacksmithing, but they also tune in for the fun. “They are invested in these crafts – as a hobby or professionally,” says Steele. “Even then, they are not watching because they want to learn. They are watching for entertainment.”

Steele is the star, and the format that includes a power hammer beating in sync with rock music is exciting to watch. The videos are a way for Steele to share his passion for creating with a broad audience of like-minded viewers.

To understand how Steele became a top blacksmith and translated that skill to a prolific content creator in a space dominated by older craftsmen, you have to go back a decade.

As a child in Norfolk, England, Steele enjoyed working with his hands – especially with his father, whose background is in woodworking. It was a good place for the boy to start, but it was metal that really intrigued him. “The first time I heard it was possible to drill a hole in steel,” he says, “my mind was completely blown.”

Steele witnessed blacksmithing first-hand when he visited a country fair at age 11. He stumbled upon the local blacksmith “hammering away in a little forge” and making trinkets and leaf pendants for key chains.

“On this rainy July day, I was completely captivated,” he recalls. “Completely mesmerized. It was unbelievable. You can take steel, heat it up, hammer it and turn it into something beautiful? I absolutely had to try it.”

So Steele created his own primitive “hole-in-the-ground charcoal forge” with items from around his house and a section of railroad track given to him by James Spedding, the local blacksmith at the fair.

Steele bought a used forge and an anvil with money given to him for Christmas and birthdays. He practiced every weekend, “making hundreds of hooks and hundreds of leaves, repeating it over and over and over again,” he says. He never tired of the process.

Steele also benefited from others who loved the craft. “Amazingly, other blacksmiths let me loiter and help out in their shops,” he says. “People have been incredibly gracious and generous with their knowledge.”

“If I hadn’t been able to properly answer the pushback, if it had swayed my determination, then good,” he says. “Because [if I gave in] I wouldn’t have been cut out to leave school and start my own business. There is a pretty good textbook way of getting yourself into a good spot in life. It is to finish school, go to university, get a degree and work your way up the career ladder. It’s not an easy thing to stay steady in the force against pressure and pushback.”

Certain practical matters, such as not being old enough to drive a car, didn’t dampen his spirits. Steele had to be resourceful when hauling materials back to his studio. He used duct tape to fasten them to back of his bicycle.
“That’s how I had to get it done,” he says. “I had to get original. I had to get my hands dirty.”

To pay the rent on his small studio in the outskirts of town, Steele made architectural inlays and sculpture for customers. That evolved into making custom tools for other blacksmiths. Steele made the business work with
“sweat and sheer force of will,” he says. There was a time when finances were precarious.

One such person: A Mississippi-based blacksmith named Brian Brazeal, with whom Steele trained during holidays and summer breaks.

“I was fascinated by the beautiful hammers and tools he was making, and the reasoning behind them,” says Steele. “He spoke a lot about rationalizing every step along the way, including the period of time you have when hot steel is coming out and working it before it cools down.”

Steele took what he learned and jumped in with both feet. He opened his own shop at age 16. The message from friends and family to stay in school wasn’t lost on him.

“I was thinking to myself ‘OK, I have 18 cents in my bank account. I need to pay $230 workshop rent next week. What am I going to do?’ You get very creative in ways to make a living.”

Eventually he became a teacher, training other blacksmiths how to make their tools. Many of Steele’s clients were older and more educated, but Steele’s knack for explaining things kept students engaged.

“I’ve always been a little bit of an effervescent cad, so to speak,” he jokes. “If I was 17 teaching a 65-yearold, or a top-end London barrister, I always try to be professional and take the time. I want to give my customers a great experience. Not just make a hammer but make something beautiful at the anvil.”

Any good entrepreneur makes adjustments to the business plan, which is how Steele became a YouTube sensation. “It was an evolution,” he says. “How am I going to point the ship and make tweaks and aim it in the right direction?”

Today, instead of making things for people, he makes videos about making things. His business is media content and his brand is his captivating personality.

Making a sale “doesn’t really come into my mind in the process [of building],” he confesses. The whole business is structured around producing content. “I’m going to put my focus on content because this is scalable. The aim is to make a really great piece, share the love of craft with people and generate revenue through advertising, sales and merchandise on YouTube.”

Steele’s projects are chosen based on what viewers want, what piques his own creative interest and what will generate views. Hundreds of his YouTube videos are free to the public. More specific tutorials are behind a paywall for a one-time fee.

Steele’s purpose, in addition to generating revenue, remains consistent: “To give as many people as possible 15 minutes of entertainment sprinkled in with some education, a little bit of enjoyment, and the opportunity to get inside the world of craft that has always intrigued them.”

For example, in a recent episode when Steele forges a Scottish Claymore sword too wide, he turns to the camera to discuss the options to fix it. By the end of the show Steele has found a fix and viewers have weighed in through online comments. By the final episode in the series, Steele’s sword is artfully completed.

With the rise of the maker culture, craftspeople are not only making things but also sharing their creative journeys online. Steele, a standout in this space, believes other makers offer a boost to his own business.

“My thought is very much, ‘A rising tide lifts all boats.’ There is so much to gain from other people being successful in the niche. It’s inspiring and helps me to be better. I think it’s fantastic that other people are sharing their work and getting more people interested in building and making stuff.”

Last year, Steele broke from the norm and sold a Viking Sword that took nearly three months to make. The proceeds – $23,000 – helped him fund his move from the U.K. to the U.S. The sword was also a way “to create a beautiful piece of craftsmanship for the YouTube channel and see how the market responded to offering my larger pieces for sale,” he says. Given the positive response, Steele intends to do something similar in the future.

Now that Steele is making the mountains of Montana his home he is excited for what’s next.

“I love the big open spaces,” he says. “It’s a dream. It’s just beautiful here. I’ve always loved America. Growing up, watching American movies, I always loved the people, the culture. I love the possibility of the U.S. There’s vitality and progress here.”

Back in the U.K., The History Channel’s Forged in Britain series just wrapped Forged with Steele. It included 18 episodes of Steele showing his skill in recreating historic weaponry, including knives and swords. Perhaps there will be more television in his future. For now, though, Steele is keen to focus on the world of YouTube – and the joy of making things.

Once a one-man show, Steele churned out 120 hours of work a week and pushed himself to the limit. Today, Steele employees a full-time bladesmith, an administrative assistant and a part-time videographer.

“I want to keep growing the team and make as much good content as possible,” he says. “Many people don’t have the hunger that I do. I want to provide value in the marketplace with my passions for creating. I’m 21 years old. I’m at the very beginning of this journey and craft.”