Metal goes through a chain of stations: ore is ground in the quern, melted in a crucible set on a fire, poured with tongs into fired clay molds, and the ingots are hammered into shape on an anvil. Read Fire and slow stations first: lighting, fuels and temperatures work the same way here. Every key below is the default one; E is the interact key.
Units of metal
A crucible counts metal in units. Each item it melts gives a metal and a number of units:
| Item | Metal | Units |
|---|---|---|
 Copper Nugget,  Crushed Copper Ore | copper | 1 |
 Crushed Cassiterite | tin | 1 |
 Crushed Galena,  Litharge | lead | 1 |
| Any ingot, a copper or bronze work piece | its metal | 2 |
Whole ore blocks do not melt: they must be ground first.
| Metal | Melting point | Casts |
|---|---|---|
| Tin | 232 °C | ingots |
| Lead | 327 °C | ingots |
| Bronze | 950 °C | ingots, axe and pickaxe heads, knife blades |
| Silver | 962 °C | ingots, silver blades |
| Copper | 1085 °C | ingots, axe and pickaxe heads, knife blades |
Finding copper and ore
Native Copper lies on the surface and breaks by hand into a copper nugget: the
first copper needs no tools at all.
Copper Ore is mined with any pickaxe, even flint. 
Tin Ore sits
in granite and 
Galena Ore in limestone; both need a copper pickaxe or better.- Rock worms sometimes drop crushed copper ore, cassiterite or galena.
The quern
A stick over two stones, made at the workbench (any stone).
Put ore in its single input slot, then press E on it with an empty hand: each turn gives two seconds of grinding, and it keeps up to four seconds ahead. Grinding ore takes six seconds, so three turns per ore. It also grinds grain into flour and rock salt into salt.
Quern - Time
- ⏱ 6 seconds
Quern - Time
- ⏱ 6 seconds
Quern - Time
- ⏱ 6 seconds
Crucible and molds
Both are shaped from clay on the clay board, then fired in the pit kiln at 600 °C for 300 game seconds (see Knapping, clay and smithing for the shaping).
| Raw piece | Clay balls | Fired piece | Places | Takes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Raw Crucible | 2 |  Fired Crucible | crucible | up to 20 units |
 Raw Ingot Mold | 3 |  Fired Ingot Mold | ingot mold | 2 units |
 Raw Axe Head Mold | 3 |  Fired Axe Head Mold | axe head mold | 3 units |
 Raw Pickaxe Head Mold | 3 |  Fired Pickaxe Head Mold | pickaxe head mold | 3 units |
 Raw Blade Mold | 3 |  Fired Blade Mold | blade mold | 2 units |
Pit Kiln - Time
- ⏱ 5 minutes
- Temperature
- 🌡 600 °C
Melting and casting
- Build the fire. Place a campfire (or a bronze forge) and fill its fuel slots with
Charcoal. On wood a fire only reaches 600 °C; charcoal burns at 1150 °C, the
only fuel hot enough for copper. - Set the crucible on top of the fire: place the fired crucible on the block above it. The crucible has no fire of its own; it follows the temperature of the station under it, rising by 30 °C a second.
- Fill it through E: four input slots, at most 20 units of metal in all.
- Light the fire with a fire starter or a torch. Once the crucible is hot enough for everything it holds (the highest melting point among them), it melts its whole charge into one melt in 20 game seconds.
- Lay the molds on the ground within two blocks of the crucible along each axis.
- Pour: with tongs in hand, press E on the crucible. It fills every empty mold within reach, nearest first, while the melt lasts; or press E on a mold to fill it from the nearest crucible. Each pour wears the tongs by one use. A melt below its melting point does not pour, and a mold only takes a metal that casts in its shape.
- Let it set. A filled mold cools by 8 °C a second; below the metal’s melting point the melt becomes the item, still hot. Open the mold with E and take it out.
A mix that makes no alloy melts into impure copper, which only casts
Impure Copper Ingot, an ingot no recipe uses.
Bronze
Bronze is copper and tin melted together in the right measure: 9 units of copper for 1 of tin, each share within 3 percent. Tin must make between 7 and 13 percent of the units, copper the rest, and no other metal may be in the crucible. Some charges that work:
- 9 crushed copper ore and 1 crushed cassiterite (10 units, five ingots of bronze).
- 9 copper ingots and 1 tin ingot (20 units, a full crucible, ten ingots).
The measure is a secret of founders. Only a crucible whose last tender knows the technique makes
bronze; a tender is whoever last pressed E on it. The technique is taught by the book
The True Measure of Bronze. Untaught, the same mix melts into impure copper. A bronze
ingot melted again on its own stays bronze, taught or not.
The mix only melts once the crucible reaches copper’s 1085 °C, so bronze needs charcoal too.
The bronze forge and its bellows
The forge is a charcoal bed made at the workbench from two clay balls and three stones; the bellows from three logs, three leather and three logs.
The forge has 4 input slots, 2 fuel slots and 2 output slots. Alone it is a campfire: 600 °C on wood, 1150 °C on charcoal, heating by 20 °C a second. With bellows beside it, it gets much hotter:
- Place the bellows on the same level as the forge, in one of the four cells next to it.
- Light the forge, then press E on the bellows. Each pump gives three seconds of blast, and the bellows keep up to nine seconds ahead.
- While blown, the forge heats by 60 °C a second toward its maximum, 1350 °C, whatever its fuel. When the blast stops it falls back to its fire’s temperature, cooling by 8 °C a second.
The forge heats the ingots and work pieces laid in its slots (a hot item moves 25 °C a second toward the station’s temperature) and the crucible set on it. It is also where glass is melted, which needs the bellows:
Bronze Forge 
- Time
- ⏱ 2 minutes
- Temperature
- 🌡 1200 °C
Silver on the cupel hearth
Silver is parted from lead on a 
Cupel Hearth, made at the workbench from a clay
ball, a lime and a clay ball over three stones.
It has 2 input slots, 2 fuel slots and 2 output slots, heats by 15 °C a second and needs charcoal:
on wood it stays at 600 °C, short of the 1000 °C cupellation asks. Both recipes are learned from
The Cupel Treatise, and the hearth only runs them while its last tender knows them.
Cupel Hearth 
- Time
- ⏱ 5 minutes
- Temperature
- 🌡 1000 °C
Cupel Hearth 
- Time
- ⏱ 5 minutes
- Temperature
- 🌡 1000 °C
Lead ingots are cast from crushed galena melted in a crucible. Litharge melts back into lead, and
also stains glass yellow. A silver ingot (2 units) remelted and poured into the blade mold gives one
Silver Blade, hafted at the workbench with a stick and a binding into a
Silver Dagger.
Hot metal and tongs
Cast items, crushed ores and ingots carry their heat. In your hands, in a bag or on the ground a hot item cools by 5 °C a second; in a station’s slot it follows the station’s temperature. Hot metal glows from 400 °C.
While you carry any item hotter than 60 °C without tongs in your hotbar, you are burnt for 2 fire damage a second. A freshly cast copper ingot needs about three and a half minutes of game time to cool down to 60 °C, so keep tongs in the hotbar whenever you work metal. Tongs are also what pours a crucible.
| Tongs | Recipe | Durability |
|---|---|---|
 Wooden Tongs | by hand: 2 sticks and a binding | 40 |
 Copper Tongs | workbench: 3 copper ingots | 200 |
 Bronze Tongs | workbench: 3 bronze ingots | 450 |
To the anvil
Ingots go to the anvil, where they are hammered hot into tool heads, blades, scales and studs. The
Stone Anvil (three stones over one) works copper; the 
Bronze Anvil
(seven bronze ingots) works copper and bronze. A piece is worked at 500 or 600 °C or more depending on
the recipe; it cools on the anvil and goes back to the forge as a work piece to be reheated. The
gestures are explained in Knapping, clay and smithing.
The cast heads are hafted at the workbench with a stick and a binding:
