To smelt black metal in Valheim, you need a Blast Furnace, which only becomes available after defeating the fourth boss, Moder. The regular Smelter won’t work for black metal scrap. You’ll load the Blast Furnace with coal and black metal scrap, and it produces black metal bars automatically.
Defeat Moder First
Black metal smelting is locked behind a specific progression gate. Moder, the dragon boss found in the Mountain biome, drops 10 Dragon Tears when defeated. You need those Dragon Tears to build an Artisan Table, and the Artisan Table is what unlocks the Blast Furnace crafting recipe. There’s no shortcut here. Even if you’ve collected stacks of black metal scrap from the Plains, you can’t do anything with them until Moder is down.
Building the Blast Furnace
Once you have the Artisan Table placed at your base, the Blast Furnace recipe appears. You’ll need:
- Stone x20
- Surtling Cores x5
- Iron x10
- Fine Wood x20
The iron requirement is the most demanding part. You’ll need 10 iron bars, which means a trip back to the Swamp if you don’t have reserves. Fine wood comes from birch or oak trees, and surtling cores drop from surtlings in the Swamp or inside burial chambers in the Black Forest. Place the Blast Furnace near your Artisan Table and make sure it has a roof, since it behaves like other crafting stations that need shelter.
Note that the Blast Furnace is separate from the regular Smelter. The standard Smelter handles copper, tin, iron, and silver. The Blast Furnace handles only black metal scrap and flametal ore. You can’t mix them up, and you’ll want both structures at your base.
Where to Find Black Metal Scrap
Black metal scrap drops exclusively in the Plains biome. The primary source is Fulings, the small goblin-like creatures that roam in groups. Fuling Berserkers and Fuling Shamans also drop scrap, though Berserkers hit hard enough to end a run if you’re unprepared. You’ll also find black metal scrap in chests scattered around Fuling villages.
The Plains is one of the most dangerous biomes in the game, so arrive with good food, a strong shield, and ideally silver-tier or padded armor. Fulings tend to swarm, and getting caught by three or four at once with a Berserker nearby is a common way to lose your gear. Clearing Fuling camps is the most efficient farming method since you get scrap from the enemies and from the chests they guard.
The Smelting Process
Using the Blast Furnace works the same way as the regular Smelter. Load coal into one side and black metal scrap into the other. The furnace consumes one coal and one black metal scrap per bar produced, converting them at a 1:1 ratio. Bars pop out the front as they finish. You can load up to 20 units of each material at a time, then step away while it runs.
If you need coal in bulk, the easiest method is cooking meat past the “done” stage until it turns to coal, or farming surtlings near fire geysers in the Swamp. A kiln, which is also unlocked through the Artisan Table, converts wood directly into coal and pairs well with the Blast Furnace for sustained production.
What Black Metal Bars Craft
Black metal is the fourth tier of metal equipment in Valheim, sitting above silver in the progression chain. It’s used almost entirely for weapons and shields rather than armor. The Plains-tier armor set (Padded Armor) actually uses iron and linen thread instead.
The weapons you can craft with black metal bars include:
- Black Metal Sword
- Black Metal Axe
- Black Metal Knife
- Black Metal Atgeir (polearm)
- Black Metal Battleaxe (two-handed)
- Black Metal Shield
- Black Metal Tower Shield
Black metal also stays relevant into the Mistlands tier, where it’s used for black metal bolts (crossbow ammo), the black metal pickaxe, and the dual-sword weapon Skoll and Hati. It’s worth stockpiling extra scrap beyond your immediate needs since you’ll keep using it well past the Plains.
A few utility items also require black metal bars, including the Lox Saddle for riding tamed lox, the Bracelets of the Brave, and the Evasion Mantle. If you’re planning to tame lox for transportation, budget a few extra bars for the saddle early on.