There are a total of five levels for your Valheim workbench. When you craft and place the bench down, it will be at level 1 by default.
Building Workbench
Crafting the workbench is easy and requires you to have 10 Wood. You can get Wood from the trees or branches around you. You need a simple building or a structure with a roof covering the workbench for you to be able to use it. You can do this by building a wall around the workbench, and a 45-degree angle thatched roof over it (must be covering the workbench to access the crafting interface).
Workbench Upgrades
Upgrading the workbench is simple, but gathering the materials for it will take time as you will need to slowly progress through the game to fully upgrade it. To upgrade your workbench, you must place specific items near or in the vicinity of the workbench. These items are identified and distinguished through the build menu interface with a ‘star’ icon. When you place the required item next to the workbench, it emits a sparkling beam of light from the item to the workbench. When you place the item and access the crafting menu via the workbench, you will notice that the level of the workbench will go up by 1. The following are the upgrade requirements, recipes, and locations where you can find the items to craft the necessary items for the workbench upgrade.
Level 2 - Chopping Block
The Chopping Block upgrade your crafting table to level 2, and gives access to a range of new craftable items and equipment. To craft the Chopping Block, you need:
10 Wood 10 Flint
Materials Locations
You can find the materials in the following locations:
Wood: Wood is easily available all around you in the form of trees and branches. You can use an axe to chop down a tree for a lot of wood or pick small branches laying on the ground. A pile of wood after chopping down a tree Flint: You can find Flint near the water around the beaches of Valheim. Flint at the shore of one of the beaches located in the Meadows biome
You unlock the recipe for the Chopping Block once you pick up the Flint. It also unlocks the recipe for the Tanning Rack which is the next item used to upgrade the workbench to level 3.
Level 3 - Tanning Rack
By placing the Tanning Rack near your workbench, the workbench will be upgraded to level 2. To craft a Tanning Rack, you need:
10 Wood 15 Flint 20 Leather Scraps 5 Deer Hide
Materials Locations
Wood: Wood, as mentioned before, can be obtained by either chopping down the trees or collecting the branches off the ground. Flint: Flint as always can be collected at the shores of the biomes. Specifically, the Meadows biome. Leather Scrap: Leather Scrap can be obtained in various ways. One of the most common and easiest method to get leather scrap is by killing the boars. A Wild Boar as seen in Valheim Other sources include random loot chests in the Meadows biome and Muddy Scrap Piles in the Swamp biome dungeons. Deer Hide: Deer hide is easily obtained by killing the deer that are in abundance all over the gigantic world of Valheim. A flock of Deer in the Meadows biome Deer Hide drop after killing a Deer
Level 4 - Adze
Now, we’re getting into the tougher and complicated sides of things. To upgrade your workbench to level 4 you need to place an Adze near your workbench. To craft an Adze, you need:
10 Fine Wood 3 Bronze
To name the ingredients is easy, but it is easier said than done. Let’s take a look at all the steps you need to take in order to upgrade your workbench to level 4.
Materials Locations
The following steps are all part of a process to get to the final materials/ingredients to build the Adze. So, we have listed down a complete step-by-step process to get your Fine Wood and Bronze. The very first thing you need to do is to defeat the first boss called ‘Eikthyr’ in the Meadows biome. You can use the area of the sacrificial stone to register the location of the boss and it will be marked on your map. When you go to the marked location, you will be asked to offer some items that will be used to spawn the boss. Each boss has a different requirement. To spawn Eikthyr, you need to offer two Deer Trophies which are obtained by killing the Deers. Once you offer them at the altar, Eikthyr will spawn. Kill him, and you will be rewarded with ‘Hard Antlers’ Once you’ve got the Hard Antlers, make your way back to your workbench and use 10 Wood and 1 Hard Antler to craft an Antler Pickaxe. Then make your way to the Black Forest biome and look for Copper and Tin deposits to mine them using the Antler Pickaxe. The Copper deposits have slight brownish lines on the rock surface as seen in the image below. When you mine the deposit, you will get Copper Ores. Next, look for Tin deposits that are found near the shores of Black Forest around the beach. They have a black line going across the surface of the rock. The same goes for the Tin Deposit as well. When you mine it, you will get the Tin Ores. Now, we need to convert these ores into refined Copper and Tin ingots to produce Bronze. Bronze in this game is an alloy of Copper and Tin ingot. So, to begin, build a Charcoal Kiln from the ‘Crafting’ menu by using your hammer tool. You will need 20 Stones and 5 Surtling Cores for the Charcoal Kiln. If you haven’t already, visit one of the dungeons in the Black Forest to find the Surtling Core. You need the Charcoal Kiln to produce Coal for the Smelter. Now that you’ve got the coal, your next step is to build a Smelter. A Smelter is used to smelt the Copper and Tin Ores into refined ingots of the same. The Smelter also requires 20 Stones and 5 Surtling Core. You can find it under the ‘Crafting’ tab of your hammer tool. You can add Coal to the right side of the Smelter fuel. And on the left side of the Smelter, you will have the option to add the materials that you want to Smelt. In our case, it would be the Copper and Tin Ores. The Smelter can hold up to 20 Coal and uses 1 Coal every 15-16 seconds as fuel. It takes around 30 seconds for the Smelter to produce one bar of metal and it can hold up to 10 ores at a time for smelting. Once you pick up the Copper Bar, you will get a notification showing you that a range of new recipes has unlocked including a Forge. Forge is important moving forward if you want to upgrade your workbench to the maximum possible level. You need to build the Forge to unlock the Bronze recipe and Tin recipe for the Smelter. The Forge will cost you 4 Stones, 4 Coal, 10 Wood, and 6 Copper to build. Once built, you will get another prompt that notifies you that more recipes have unlocked including Bronze and Tin. The first thing you need to do now is to use the Forge to craft Bronze. You need 2 Copper and 1 Tin to craft 1 Bronze ingot. When you craft your first Bronze, you will get a range of new recipes including new Bronze tools. Next, you must build a Bronze Axe otherwise, you won’t be able to upgrade your workbench. Bronze Axe will require 4 Wood, 8 Bronze, and 2 Leather Scraps. The reason you need the Bronze Axe is to chop down a Birch tree that cannot be chopped using a regular Stone Axe. You need Fine Wood which can only be obtained by cutting down a Birch tree. When you pick up the Fine Wood for the first time, you will unlock the recipe for the Adze, the item we need to upgrade our workbench to level 4 (yes, finally!). Now, you’re ready to upgrade your workbench to level 4. To build the Adze, you need 10 Fine Wood and 3 Bronze. Make sure the Forge is nearby when building the Adze or else you won’t be able to build it. Once you build it, you will get a prompt that the workbench has been upgraded to level 4.
Level 5 - Tool Shelf
The final piece you need is the Tool Shelf to fully upgrade your workbench which is level 5. To build the Tool Shelf, you need:
4 Iron 1 Fine Wood 4 Obsidian
The iron tools are considered to be “mid-game” tools. To get access to the Iron tools, you must defeat the second boss called ‘The Elder’ found in the Black Forest.
Materials Locations
The Elder is summoned by offering 3 Ancient Seeds. You can get Ancient Seeds by killing either the Greydwarf Shaman or Greydwarf Brute. It is also a guaranteed drop if you destroy a Greydwarf nest. You need 3 Ancient Seeds to be offered at the sacrificial altar to summon The Elder boss. You need to defeat the Elder to acquire a Swamp Key. After getting the Swamp Key, find a Swamp biome. It looks like a dark brown colored patch on the map. Before going to the Swamp Biome, it would be best to gear up using Bronze to fully armor up and have a Bronze sword as well since the enemies you encounter here are stronger than your usual Greydwarfs. You need to look for a secret dungeon in the Swamp Biome and use your Swamp Key to unlock it. You will find Muddy Scrap Piles inside the dungeon that can be mined using your Antler Pickaxe to acquire Scrap Iron. You can also find several chests inside the dungeon containing the Scrap Iron. Once you have the Scrap Iron, you can bring it back to the Smelter and smelt it into Iron ingots. Now that you have the iron recipes unlocked, you need to craft an Iron Pickaxe. Iron Pickaxe is essential as you will use it to mine the Obsidian which is one of the materials needed for the Tool Shelf. To craft an Iron Pickaxe, you need to upgrade your Forge to level 2. You can upgrade your Forge to level 2 by placing Anvils next to the Forge. It will have a similar sparkling light beaming towards the Forge from the Anvils. You need 5 Wood and 2 Bronze to build the Anvils. You still won’t have the recipe for the Iron Pickaxe. To unlock the recipe, you must first collect Core Wood by chopping down Pine tree at the Black Forest biome. The first time you pick up the Core Wood, you will get a notification showing you that the recipe of the Iron Pickaxe is now unlocked. Head back to the Forge and craft your Iron Pickaxe. You will need 20 Iron Ingots and 3 Core Wood to craft an Iron Pickaxe. Once you have the Iron Pickaxe, make your way to one of the snowy Mountain biomes. You will find the Obsidian in these Mountains biomes. You can use your Iron Pickaxe to mine the Obsidian. When you pick up the Obsidian, it will unlock new recipes including the recipe for the Tool Shelf which is what we need to upgrade our workbench to level 5. Finally, make your way back to the workbench and use your hammer to access the ‘Crafting’ tab to find the new Tool Shelf. It will go on the wall. So, place it on a wall near the workbench so it is in range and upgrades your workbench. When you place the Tool Shelf, you will get a prompt that will notify you about the workbench upgrading to Level 5. Now, you’ve completely upgraded your workbench to the maximum possible level available in the game. Note that more levels are expected to be added (the current date is 31st March 2021), and once they do, we will be sure to upgrade our guide accordingly. You will now notice that the sparkling beams of light are concentrated towards the single workbench from all the parts that you’ve placed nearby. You will now have access to a variety of items to craft from the workbench.
Workbench Recipes & Level Requirements
Tools
Armors
Weapons
Shields
Arrows
Others
DLC Content
The following items are only available for the early supporters of the game via a steam code that was sent out to the individuals by the Iron Gate Studios (developers) to those who signed up for the Beta version of Valheim.
