Just in case anyone is interested, here’s a breakdown of the main YouTube Channels I watch and enjoy. You never know, it may inspire you to watch something new! I actually subscribe to about 60 channels. Some are not updated frequently and these I haven’t included them here.
This was last updated on 26th February 2024.
The main ones that I enjoy can be classified under a few generic descriptions:
Engineering\Mechanical\Electrical
Many moons ago, I used to be an engineer and I very much enjoyed doing it. In fact I still enjoy it and hence these are the channels that are interesting to me for that reason:
- Colin Furze (colinfurze – YouTube) Colin’s UK channel is my current overall favourite channel (see Is Furze My Surrogate Dibnah?). It’s entertaining, Colin is a total legend and makes some crazy stuff with some top quality engineering. Definitely worth a watch, just to see his joy at creating something special (usually from stainless steel!).
- James Condon (James Condon – YouTube) James is an American chap that renovates, restores generators. He is a frequent poster (he’s a busy guy!) – he videos in detail all the various problems associated with small engines and generator powerheads. If you’re into smaller engined equipment, worth a watch.
- BigClivedotcom (bigclivedotcom – YouTube) One of the bigger channels on YouTube, the UK based Clive is a Scottish electrical engineer. Clive loves to strip down and reverse engineer all manner of cheap and cheerful shite from EBay, pointing out the safety aspects and explaining how they work. If you’re into electronics\electrical engineering, then Clive is your man. He also puts various alcoholic liquids through a sodastream to see if it makes them better.
- Small Engine Mechanic (SmallEngineMechanic – YouTube) Another American engineer that works on generators. Mike is a professional generator engineer by trade, and videos his efforts for us all to see. Mike’s generators tend to be the bigger ones at the moment (despite the channel name), he does various things to them, upgrades, restorations or just runs them for fun. Worth a watch if you’re in to U.S. generators of the more industrial kind.
- New Yorkshire Workshop (New Yorkshire Workshop – YouTube) Russ is a UK-based carpenter who lives – you guessed it – in Yorkshire. He is a superb carpenter and has made all sorts of things from doors and windows to stair rails. He is not just a carpenter however. He has detailed his (hard) work in making a CNC router table, laying flooring in the house he is renovating and fitting skirting and bathrooms. Worth a watch if you like not a lot of talking, Yorkshire humour and quality carpentry.
- My Mechanics (my mechanics – YouTube) This a very skilled chap from Switzerland that restore old stuff. The way that he does it is through using outstanding engineering skills to recreate and restore items like vintage headphones, lamps and any number of rusty old bits of equipment. Entertaining to watch (not talky) and highly skilled.
Entertainment
These channels are for (as the title says) for my own amusement or entertainment.
- Martijn Doolaard (Martijn Doolaard – YouTube) Martjin is originally from Amsterdam. He’s been on YouTube for a while, as he has cycled thousands of miles across continents on both bicycle and motorcycle. He grabbed my attention last year, when he purchased two stone cabins and some land in the Italian Alps. All of his videos since are cataloguing his journey to restore the cabins so he can live in them. He’s doing this mostly on his own, too!
- BeardMeatsFood (BeardMeatsFood – YouTube) I am subscribed to a number of these types of channels, but Adam’s channel is by far my favourite. If you haven’t heard of him, he is a competitive eater. In other words, he goes around completing (or not) food challenges at various food establishments. What sets him apart from the others is the quality of his videos, his comical upbeat attitude and his dedication to the food! He’s UK based, but does travel and collaborates with other competitive eaters.
- Bad Lip Reading (Bad Lip Reading – YouTube) This channel is pure gold! It takes TV programmes and interprets what the people are saying using lip reading. Bad lip reading. Check out the songs though, they are magnificent.
- Nerdforge (Nerdforge – YouTube) This couple from Norway build and make fantasy items. I’m not normally into fantasy things like Lord Of The Rings etc., however Martina is an excellent artist and paints the most beautiful pictures. She’s very skilled at what she does, from painting fluorescent futuristic cityscapes to customising Playstations to look like castles, with flowing realistic lava waterfalls.
- Life Uncontained (Life Uncontained – YouTube) I was one of the first subscribers to this channel, when they started their channel just over five years ago. The channel catalogues Spencer and McKenzie’s journey building their own home from two shipping containers in Texas somewhere – from scratch. Spencer does all the work himself, from electrics to plumbing to rainwater collection for use as drinking water. It’s been fascinating watching their progress over the years. They’re totally off-grid, processing their own water, electricity and sewage.
Land Rovers
I used to own a Land Rover. It was a 1977 Series III SWB. I owned for quite a few years and did various upgrades and improvements on it – specifically shoehorning in a Ford V6 3 litre petrol with a three speed automatic gearbox. I had to get rid of it in the end, as I didn’t have the facilities to work on it. A sad day!
These three channels are people rebuilding or refurbishing various flavours of Land Rover (and other things).
- Maximus Ironthumper (Maximus Ironthumper – YouTube) Amongst many other projects, Max is currently restoring a LWB Land Rover from scratch. However Max does many other things, including ironmongery. He’s also with his colleague Mark working on “Project Awesome”, which is a pipe organ in a lorry! If you like a bit of grass roots mechanising, Max is your channel. Max lives on his own property in the UK, which he has made off grid and self sustainable.
- Land Rover Sophie (Land Rover Sophie – YouTube) Sophie is a young lady that lives in the UK. She is currently an apprentice\technician working at Aston Martin in the UK and uses her spare time to restore and tinker with her five Land Rovers of different flavours. She owns Defenders, Discoveries and a S3 Land Rover. She doesn’t post terribly often, but they are always interesting to watch as she does adhere to the best engineering practices.
- Croker vs Rover (CROKER vs Rover – YouTube) Geoff is a New Zealand based engineer who is currently restoring (from scratch) an old S3 Land Rover. As a side project, he’s also repairing a Discovery to use as a daily driver. He uses top notch engineering practices and a lot of ingenuity!
Retro Tech
These channels deal with retro technology, such as tape players, computers and all manner of obscure technology. If you’re old like me, you’ll remember most of this stuff!
- The 8-bit Guy (The 8-Bit Guy – YouTube) Texas based David’s channel is mainly about 80’s and 90’s retro tech, focussing on gaming and gaming equipment. However, he does do restorations of old kit, including fixing and demonstrating. He’s covered a lot of the history of the main home computers, such as Commodore and IBM. He also goes on the odd road trip to locations famous for retro tech.
- Techmoan (Techmoan – YouTube) Matt’s UK channel is amongst my very favourite YouTube channels. Matt covers a lot of the retro tech that was to be found in the UK during the 80’s and 90’s, usually focussing on audio\visual equipment. He also covers a lot of weird or rare retro kit and does a very honest job of describing the equipment. In fact, it’s that very honesty that drew me to his channel in the first place – he doesn’t hold back the punches and (like me) likes what he likes. If you’re into old Walkmans, CD players or Lemmy’s slot machine, this channel is definitely for you.
- Technology Connections (and Connextras) (Technology Connections – YouTube) Alec’s channel has been around since 2014, so he’s fast approaching his 10 year anniversary. Mostly retro tech based, he does a great job of finding the connections between different technologies (hence the channel title). As he’s US based, most of his descriptions are based around US systems (such as the US electrical systems), which is one of the main reasons that I follow his channel. He has a secondary channel (Connextras) which compliments his primary channel and is a looser, unscripted method of presentation. I’ve learned a few things from Alec over the years!
Cars
There are a lot of car and truck-based channels on YouTube. Out of all of them (and they are many and varied) these three are my favourites.
- Junkyard Digs (Junkyard Digs – YouTube) I was one of Iowa based Kevin’s first subscribers when he started his channel in 2017. In the beginning, he used to visit junkyards and resurrect old American cars just to see if he could make them run. Nowadays, he has his own workshop, his own garage equipment and many helpers to assist him resurrecting old cars. Mainly focussing on old American muscle cars, Kevin makes them drivable and either sells them on, or uses them in anger. But he doesn’t just resurrect cars. Oh no. He plants corn, arranges rallies and races snowmobiles. Checkout his partner’s channel too: Junkyard Mook (Junkyard Mook – YouTube) She has a similar channel, although posts less often. Funny, entertaining, educational.
- NoNonsenseKnowHow (and NoNonsenseKnowHow 2) (NoNonsenseKnowHow – YouTube) Chris’s channel is also about resurrecting old American cars and trucks, but that’s only the start of it. His main channel (NoNonsenseKnowHow) covers the mechanical side of things, with various tangents off to go boating or airboating (having brought various boats and an airboat back to life in order to enjoy). He travels to various parts of the US to pick up (and resurrect) old cars, which he then drives back (sometimes thousands of miles) to his home in Philadelphia. His second channel covers mostly reviews of things that suppliers send him and trips out to other States in his camper, or trucks. Both channels are worth a watch – I’m not overly keen on reviews of stuff that I will never use, but Chris makes them interesting and shown me – a humble UK resident – various bits of America that you would never see as a tourist.
- Polebarn Garage (Pole Barn Garage – YouTube) It was Kevin from Junkyard Digs that made me aware of Dalton at Polebarn Garage and his Holey Goat GTO. He’d visited in one of his videos and given Mook a ride around in the Goat. Dalton’s videos are mainly about Dalton buying piece of shit cars (he’ll willingly admit that) and making them run again, to varying degrees, but always on a budget. Of course these are highly entertaining, and while Dalton maintains he is an idiot, an idiot he is most definitely not! Lots of fun on this channel, they occasionally hook up with Junkyard Digs for more car (and beer) based fun and frolics.
Music
Again, a lot of music channels on YouTube. These three are my current “indie” favourites (however this list changes frequently!).
Obviously, I subscribe to mainstream band channels like Sparks and Jean-Michel Jarre.
- Anna Lapwood (Anna Lapwood – YouTube) UK organist and Director of Music at Pembroke College, Anna Lapwood has become a TikTok sensation for her little videos playing film tunes on the organ at The Royal Albert Hall. She’s branching out to other social medias now, including her YouTube channel. If you like a bit of organ music, or classical, then this should be on your channel list.
- aki-Electone Solo (aki-Electone solo – YouTube) Japan based Aki plays popular tunes on her Yamaha Electone organ. And that is about it! She is however very, very good and does some very good versions of popular tunes.
- Le Piano qui Braille (Le Piano qui Braille – YouTube) Laura is a French organist\pianist, who works teaching vision impaired people to play the piano. She performed an outstanding version of the Interstellar themes on the pipe organ at Église Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption, Le Grand-Bornand in France. She has more videos on her YouTube channel, however the greater majority of her content is on TikTok and Instagram.
So there we have it. Those are just a few of the 60-plus channels that I subscribe to. YouTube is a brilliant resource for entertainment, education and just plain silliness. Without it, I wouldn’t have an understanding of the US electrical system (it’s of no use to me, or course), guidance on how to properly fit a basin waste or heard the Interstellar theme played on the Royal Albert Hall organ.
And that’s why I love it.