Metalworking Guide
Casting Age (Copper & Bronzes)
Gathering Ore
There are currently two stone-age methods of gathering ore, running around and looking for them as items on the surface, or by using a Gold Pan.
To make a single metal tool head you will need to collect 10 pieces of small, copper-bearing ore: Native Copper, Malachite, or Tetrahedrite. You can mix these in any combination, and it will still form copper.
If you wish to make Bronze tools, you can follow the alloy recipe and replace some of the copper ores with the following:
¹ Note: Only metals that have the word bronze in their name are considered bronze. Other metals made out of the above ores that do not have bronze in their name, such as Brass, Rose Gold, and Sterling Silver are not bronzes or copper, and therefore cannot be made into tools.
Smelting
Note: The Vessel can only smelt ores. If you have turned your metals into ingots, you will need to heat them in a forge to liquefy them, or use a Crucible if you plan on making alloys.
Copper
A Ceramic Vessel can be used to smelt Native Copper, Malachite and Tetrahedrite ore into pure molten copper metal. To do this, fill the vessel with ore (stacks of different ores may be placed together in the same vessel) and then fire it in a kiln. It takes 100 units of a metal to make a tool.
After the firing, retrieve the vessel from the kiln and right-click it to open up its GUI. You will see that now instead of the usual four slots the vessel has only one and contains text describing the amount of metal it contains. This metal will remain liquid for about 10 Minecraft hours, starting after the firing completes. If the metal inside solidifies, the GUI will not open and you must fire it in a pit kiln again to re-melt it. Note: Vessels with molten metal inside will have a white, "Liquid" tooltip on them.
Bronzes
A Ceramic Vessel can also be used to create Bronze, Black Bronze and Bismuth Bronze.
Before Firing: Place the necessary ores into a Ceramic Vessel, in the proper proportions for the desired type of bronze. For example, if you wanted to create normal Bronze then you would put copper ore (any combination of Native Copper, Malachite or Tetrahedrite) and Cassiterite into the vessel. For each alloy there is a range of proportions which will produce the desired alloy. You don't have to hit an exact percentage, just be within the range.
After Firing: If you got the proportions right then when you right-click the vessel it will open up the same single-slot GUI as described above for smelting pure ores. You can then transfer the molten bronze metal to a Ceramic Mold in the same way. If you got the proportions wrong then when you right-click the vessel you'll get the four-slot storage GUI showing the raw ores still sitting in the vessel, unchanged.
Casting
Ceramic tool and weapon molds can be filled directly from the vessel, or from a liquid unshaped ingot.
All the recipes for tool and weapon molds can be found at the Clay Tool Molds page.
Vessel
Once a vessel is fired, right click with it to open the casting GUI. Place an empty or partially filled Ceramic Tool, Weapon, or Ingot Mold into the slot to fill it with metal from the vessel. It takes 100 units of metal to completely fill an empty Ceramic Mold. The text in the vessel's GUI will be updated to show the amount of metal remaining in the vessel.
Unshaped Ingot
If the copper or bronze has already been turned into an ingot, simply heat it in a forge with an empty ingot mold in the appropriate slot to melt it. While the full, unshaped metal is at liquid temperature, right click with it in your hand to open the casting GUI. You will see an arrow with one slot to its left and two to its right. The leftmost slot will contain the filled mold. Place a single empty tool or weapon mold into the first slot on the right to begin the transfer. Once the transfer is complete the tool mold will move into the output slot and will show itself filled with metal.
Retrieve the filled tool mold and the now-empty Ceramic Mold from the slots on the left. There is a chance that the Ceramic Ingot Mold will be broken and lost during this process.
Once the mold is full, place it into your crafting area and retrieve the finished tool or weapon head from the output. The mold will be destroyed in the process.
Anvils
In order to progress out of the Casting Age, you will first need to work your way up to a Tier 2 Anvil.
Stone
By using a hammer on the top of a raw Igneous stone block, you will open the anvil GUI.
Igneous Rock Types | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Igneous Intrusive | Diorite | Gabbro | Granite | |
Igneous Extrusive | Andesite | Basalt | Dacite | Rhyolite |
Double Ingots can be obtained by welding. In order to weld, you need Flux. To complete the weld, place the Flux in the anvil, then ⇧ Shift+ Right Click on the anvil with a both ingots and then with the hammer.
Copper
After you have obtained seven Copper Double Ingots, craft them into a Copper Anvil, where you can weld Bronze Ingots into Double Ingots.
After you have obtained seven Bronze Double Ingots or seven Bismuth Bronze Double Ingots, craft them into an Anvil, where you can work Bronze Double Ingots into Sheets and weld Sheets into Double Sheets.
Iron Age
Gathering Ore
By now you should have a Pickaxe and a Prospector's Pick to use for finding and mining ore.
Smelting
Wrought Iron
Wrought Iron is obtained by working a Raw Iron Bloom that has been created in a Bloomery on an Anvil. The first step is to work the bloom into a Refined Iron Bloom. The next step, if the refined bloom is larger than 100 units of metal, is to continue working the bloom to break it down into smaller pieces. A refined bloom of size 100 can be worked into an ingot.
Pig Iron
Pig Iron is obtained by smelting the Iron Ore in a Blast Furnace. It is not usable for tools on its own.
Steel
Steel is obtained from a couple smithing steps:
- Place the pig iron ingot into the anvil, and work it into High Carbon Steel.
- Put it back in the working slot and work it into Steel
Black Steel
Black steel is obtained from an alloy recipe and a couple smithing steps:
- Follow the alloy recipe to make the Weak Black Steel ingot.
- Weld a Weak Black Steel ingot and a Pig Iron ingot to produce a Black Steel ingot
Red and Blue Steel
Red and Blue Steel are obtained from an alloy recipe and a few smithing steps:
- Follow the alloy recipe to make the Weak Colored Steel in a Crucible.
- Weld the Weak ingot with a Black Steel ingot to produce a High Carbon ingot.
- Work the High Carbon ingot in the anvil to make a regular colored steel ingot.
Smithing
See Anvil page for the guidelines of smithing metal.
Input | Work Type | Result |
---|---|---|
Ingot | Hammer | Axe Head, Chisel Head, Hammer Head, Hoe Head, Javelin head, Knife blade, Pickaxe Head, Prospector's Pick head, Saw Blade, Shovel Head, Scythe Blade |
2 Ingots + Flux | Weld | Double Ingot |
Double Ingot | Hammer | Mace Head, Sword Blade |
Double Ingot | Hammer | Sheet |
Sheet | Armor Process1 | Helmet, Boots |
Sheet | Hammer2 | Bucket |
2 Sheets + Flux | Weld | Double Sheet |
Double Sheet | Armor Process1 | Chestplate, Greaves |
Double Sheet | Hammer | Tuyere, Shield |