This article is part of a directory: Valheim Complete Guide for Tips, Tricks, and General Help
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Valheim players must build a Smelter if they want to craft metal armor and weapons. Before the Forge can be used, ore and scraps need to be refined by using a Smelter. The Smelter uses charcoal to melt and refine ore. Unless survivors enjoy killing Surtlings to farm charcoal, they will want to build a kiln as well.

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Charcoal Kilns convert all types of wood into charcoal which can be fed into the Smelter. It will be frustrating to collect enough charcoal for the Smelter when players are refining metal to create weapon and armor sets. This guide will cover how to build the Smelter, Charcoal Kiln, as well as the Blast Furnace.

How To Build A Smelter

Finding and smelting Copper ore in Valheim

Smelters are relatively easy to construct if gamers know where to find a Surtling Core. The item is a drop from any of the Surlings which frequent the Swamp biomes. The fire elementals can also be spotted in the Ashlands biome as well. The other two ways to find the cores are to explore the burial chambers in the Meadows and Black Forest, or by opening random chests. Players will need a total of five cores and 20 stone. People should have no issue finding 20 stone while wandering the various biomes. Stone is a very common drop while mining too.

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The Smelter will cover a 2x2 square and is about 4 feet tall. It has a durability of 2,000 and can be broken down with a hammer. All of the materials used to construct it may be looted, making moving the item relatively simple.

Using The Smelter

At this point in the game, the Smelter will process copper ore, tin ore, silver ore, and scrap metal. Gamers will need a Blast Furnace to process blackmetal scraps, however. The Smelter will need four coal per minute to operate, and it takes just over half a minute to turn ore or scraps into metal. The maximum capacity of the Smelter is 10 ore and 20 coal, which can be annoying when refining hundreds of ores. To speed up the process, players can sleep until all of the metal bars are ready and load up the Smelter again.

All of the items in this guide will need to be placed on either stone or natural terrain. There are ways around the requirement. Using a hoe or placing the Smelter on stone above ground first are two methods. These processing items will need to be close to a workbench as well, although there are mods to work around the requirement.

How To Build A Charcoal Kiln

Valheim Kiln

The Charcoal Kiln is constructed with the same materials as the Smelter, 20 stone and 5 Surtling Cores. Gamers can head back to the Swamp or Ashland biomes to collect the five Surtling Cores. The capacity of a kiln is 25 wood at once. Similar to the Smelter, resting will speed up the time it takes to convert the wood into charcoal.

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Any wood can be used, but the kiln will load with basic wood before fine or core wood. This is a good thing because players do not want to waste the more useful types of wood to create charcoal. It will take just over a quarter of a minute to create 1 coal from 1 wood. Newly constructed kilns have 1,500 durability, which is 500 less than the Smelter. They take up a 4x4 block, unlike the smelter.

How To Build A Blast Furnace

Blast-Furnace-in-Valheim

Smelters are unable to process black metal scraps and flametal ore. People that have already made their way to the treacherous Plains biome will want to have a furnace to refine all of their black metal scraps. Gamers will need 20 stone, 5 Surtling Cores, 10 iron, and 20 fine wood to build the blast furnace. Fine wood is dropped from the Oak and Birch trees in the Plains and Meadows. Iron is created by refining metal scraps with the Smelter. The only places to find metal scraps are the crypts in the Swamp biome. To unlock the crypts, survivors will have to conquer the Elder, who will drop a key. Inside of the crypts, mudpiles will often contain a few metal scraps. Players can take the scraps to the smelter and produce iron bars.

There are a couple of prerequisites to unlock the Blast Furnace at the workbench. Gamers must defeat Moder and craft an Artisan table. Anyone that needs help fighting the boss should review our Moder guide. Likewise, how to craft an artisan table is linked here. The Blast Furnace can be loaded with 20 ore and 10 coal at a time just like the Smelter. However, the Blast Furnace can only process black metal scraps and flametal ore. Blast Furnaces have the same dimensions as the Smelter. With all three of the refining and processing tools at their disposal, players will be able to convert all ore and scraps into metal.

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