The Forge is your main stop for weapons and armor of all tiers in Valheim, but if you want to upgrade those armaments, you’ll first have to upgrade the Forge itself. That’s right; to make the forge better, you’ll have to build all sorts of upgrade structures throughout the game.
Most of these upgrades are fairly straightforward, but some of them can be downright awful to craft. Each upgrade lets you craft new gear and upgrade old gear to higher levels, making them essential in any playthrough. Since there’s no skipping these upgrades, here’s how you can craft each Forge upgrade and what they unlock.
Upgrading The Forge
The Forge has a total of six upgrade structures: the Anvils, Forge Cooler, Grinding Wheel, Forge Toolrack, Smith’s Anvil, and Forge Bellows. Each one when placed near a Forge upgrades its level which unlocks new recipes and upgrades levels for gear. To craft all of them, you’ll need a total of:
- 2 Bronze
- 4 Chains
- 10 Copper
- 5 Deer Hide
- 25 Fine Wood
- 35 Iron
- 1 Sharpening Stone
- 50 Wood
Keep in mind that you can’t place these upgrades too close to each other, and since the Forge requires so many upgrade structures, make sure you leave plenty of room for them when you build your base. Additionally, the Forge Bellows have a specific placement rule: It has to touch the Forge itself, so keep a space reserved for it.
The sheer amount of Forge upgrades can easily clog up your base, so consider creating a basement beneath your floorboards to house some of them. All the upgrades, except for the bellows, can still improve the Forge through walls and floors.
Most of the items you can craft at the Forge are weapons and armor, so upgrading the Forge is rarely the key to unlocking new recipes. Instead, upgrading the Forge lets you max out various weapons and armor throughout the game, which can still drastically improve your combat potential.
It’s worth mentioning, that, unlike other crafting stations, you can build every upgrade for the Forge once you make it to the Swamps. The Grinding Wheel, Forge Toolrack, Smith’s Anvil, and Forge Bellows can all be built at more or less the same time once you access Iron. If you build all of them before moving on to the Mountains, you’ll never have to worry about upgrading your Forge later on in the game.
The Anvils
The Anvils are the first and easiest Forge Upgrade. Their recipe is simple and doesn’t require many materials at all. To build them, you’ll only need:
You’ll need Bronze to make this upgrade, which is hardly an issue since it can be crafted at the Forge itself if you have Tin and Copper bars nearby. On top of that, this recipe requires so few resources that you’re unlikely to miss them.
The Anvils will let you start upgrading your Bronze weapons and armor, and while they technically unlock a slew of Iron gear, you won’t be able to craft them for a while. If you’re looking to make an easy-to-access Forge for repairs, consider mining just enough materials to craft Anvils on-site.
The Forge Cooler
The Forge Cooler is the first tricky upgrade structure for the Forge. While its materials are simple enough, you’ll need quite a bit of them. To build it, you’ll need:
Getting 10 Copper can be quite a task, and if you forget about building this upgrade right away, you can easily turn all your Copper on hand into Bronze, forcing you to go and get more. On top of that 25 Fine Wood is a hefty amount. You can harvest Fine Wood from Birch trees in the Meadows with a Bronze Axe, but you’ll need to cut down four or five of them to get the amount you need for the Forge Cooler.
However, the hassle is worth it since the Forge Cooler will unlock another level of upgrades for Bronze-level gear, allowing you to wade into the Swamps with confidence. Technically, this upgrade unlocks Silver gear as well, but you won’t be able to get Silver before mining a bunch of Iron.
The Grinding Wheel
The Grinding Wheel is perhaps the weirdest Forge upgrade, and if you’re not careful, you could go the whole game without crafting it. This is all because of the strange materials it calls for:
- 1 Sharpening Stone
- 25 Wood
Wood is easy enough to get, but many players have no idea where to find a Sharpening Stone. The answer is simple and frustratingly hidden in plain sight: You can craft a Sharpening Stone at a Stonecutter.
While it’s primarily used to unlock stone building pieces, the Stonecutter is technically a crafting bench with only one recipe: the Sharpening Stone. That means to build the Grinding Wheel, you’ll need at least two Iron to build the Stonecutter. Once you have that, the recipe is simple, boiling down to just Wood and Stone.
And the Grinding Wheel is perhaps one of the most interesting Forge Upgrades too. Since it only requires two pieces of Iron, this can be built after only minimal forays into the Swamps by getting Iron underground or from Oozers. On top of that, since the Iron isn’t directly a part of its recipe, you can teleport all the ingredients for a Grinding Wheel anywhere you want in the world.
If you build the Grinding Wheel along with the previous upgrades, you’ll upgrade the Forge to level four and finally be able to upgrade your Bronze items to their max levels, but it might be a bit late for that since you’ll now have access to Iron anyway. This upgrade also unlocks Black Metal gear from the Plains, but you won’t be able to smelt Black Metal until you’ve beaten Moder, the boss of the Mountains.
The Forge Toolrack is the second Forge upgrade structure you’ll unlock in the Swamps. It has a simple recipe that, unfortunately, calls for plenty of materials to compensate:
That’s a lot of Iron to put into one structure, rivaling the crafting cost for many pieces of Iron gear. However, this upgrade is definitely worth the cost since it’ll allow you to upgrade Iron weapons and armor to their max levels at the Forge.
The Smith’s Anvil
The Smith’s Anvil is the third Forge upgrade structure you’ll get from braving the Swamps, and like the tool rack, it has a simple recipe that asks for materials in bulk. To build it, you’ll need:
It’s not easy to scrouge up 20 Iron to build this structure, and it’s worse thinking about what you could’ve spent that Iron on instead. However, you’ll need this Forge upgrade since it allows you to fully upgrade Silver gear.
The Forge Bellows
The Forge Bellows is the final upgrade for the Forge and one of the hardest ones to build. The materials for it are also found in the Swamps, but unlike the Forge Toolrack and Smith’s Anvil, the Forge Bellows call for rarer items. To craft it, you’ll need:
- 4 Chain
- 5 Deer Hide
- 5 Wood
The Chains are the tricky material for this structure. Chains can only be found in two places: in Sunken Crypt chest and as a drop from Wraiths in the Swamps at night. Sometimes, you’ll get lucky, find five Chains in your first Crypt, and build this upgrade with no problem. Other times, you’ll question if there are actually Chains in the game as you hunt Wraiths and Plunder Crypts without finding a single one.
When you finally get the materials around to craft the Forge Bellows, you’ll be able to upgrade Black Metal items to their highest level. On top of that, the Forge Bellows is one of only two Forge upgrades that don’t have metal in their recipe, meaning you can teleport it at will to any Forge you want it at.
