Where To Farm Steel in Fallout 4 (Best Locations)

The best way to farm Steel is to head to Spectacle Island and scrap all the metal crates, barrels, mannequins, and safes from the beached barge (this is located in the northeast area of the island.)

Note: You need to activate Spectacle Island’s workshop before using it as a settlement.

Other settlements, such as Sanctuary, contain many objects and structures like mailboxes, cars, and ruined houses that can also be scrapped for steel.

But once you’ve cleared out your settlements, you can loot steel containing junk items, scavenge for weapons and armor, or buy shipments of steel from an NPC.

Here’s a list of all the items that can be scrapped for steel:

How To Activate Spectacle Island’s Workshop

Before being able to scrap all that steel from Spectacle Island, you need to activate its workshop first. Follow these steps:

1. In the middle of the island, you need to find a small metal shack with a radio tower.
2. Locate the cable coming from the radio tower.
3. By following it, you will find a beached boat.
4. Inside the boat, activate the generator.
5. Watch out for all the enemies that spawn after activating the generator.
6. Go back to the metal shack and activate the circuit breaker connected to the wire.
7. You’ve successfully activated Spectacle Island as a settlement.

Tip: The Fat Man inside the boat will help you deal with the enemies. If you are low level, it will be difficult to clear out the island.

Other Settlements To Farm Steel From

The second settlement I recommend is Sanctuary. You will mainly find ruined houses, destroyed cars, and mailboxes as sources of steel here.

Most settlements contain some steel, and it’s much easier and cheaper to scrap objects from settlements than to raid enemy camps or buy steel shipments from NPCs.

Here’s the location of all other settlements in the Commonwealth where you might find steel:

Best Spots To Loot Steel From

I recommend checking out these 3 spots:

• Corvega Assembly Plant
• Federal Station Stockpile
• Jamaica Plain Town Hall Basement

And this is their location on the map of the Commonwealth:

They will have many junk items that contain steel and/or raiders that drop weapons and armor that can also be scrapped into steel.

Corvega Assembly Plant and Federal Station Stockpile are full of enemies that drop great loot, and also have many valuable junk items lying around.

To get access to Jamaica Plain Town Hall Basement you will need to pick an Advanced lock. Inside, you will find many laser trip wires that once disarmed, will yield you some steel.

Note: To scrap weapons and armor, you need to have the Scrapper Perk at level 1. The Strong Back perk is also very helpful because if you become overencumbered after a raid, you can still fast travel to another location.

Getting Steel From NPCs

I don’t recommend doing this unless you have extra bottle caps to spare. But if you do, it’s the easiest & fastest way to get some steel.

When buying from NPCs, you don’t have to carry the weight of the steel because you are buying it as a shipment of steel.

To use this item, store it in a crafting station, start crafting, and it will be converted into steel.

This is a list of all NPCs that sell shipments of steel:

This is their location on the map:

Note: Level 3 settlement general goods merchants also sell shipments of 250 steel.

Extra Tip #1: How To Check If An Item Contains Steel

1. Open crafting mode from one of your settlements.
2. Find an object that requires steel and try to craft it.
3. If you lack enough steel to build it, the “TAG FOR SEARCH” option will be available, press it.
4. From now on, all items that contain steel will display a small magnifying glass before their names.

Extra Tip #2: How To Convert Items Into Steel

1. Grab an item that can be scrapped into steel.
2. Go to one of your crafting stations and transfer the item.
3. Store the item in your crafting station.
4. When you start crafting, the item will be converted into its raw materials.
5. For junk items, use the workshop, for armors, the armor workbench, and for weapons, the weapons workbench.

Tip: When you use the “Store All Junk” option, make sure to take out any important items, as they will be scrapped once you start crafting, and there will be no way to recover them.