Where to Get Iron: Ore, the Old Mine and Iron Ingots

Iron turns a bronze-age graveyard into an industry: anvils, better tools, Factory entrances, town kits and Jack’s orders all want it. The first batch comes from rocks that never grow back; later, a zombie digs it for you forever. Here is every source, every smelting route and what each one really costs.

Every iron source at a glance

No trader sells Iron Ingots and none buys them, so plan on smelting every ingot you need. And Iron Scrap exists as an item name only: nothing in update 1.008 drops or makes it, so iron has no scrap shortcut the way bronze does.

Iron ore boulders: the Forest and the Quarry

In most saves the first iron comes out of the ground by hand. Iron ore boulders are scattered through the Forest (a few more are reported in the Swamp), and three of them stand at the Quarry, the stone and marble faces just south of the Yard. Clay, sand, stone, marble and the other raw materials are in where to find materials.

• Each break gives 3 Iron Ore. The Smithing talent Miner adds 1 more. The big boulders appear to break in two stages, a large rock and then a smaller one, which would make about 6 ore per boulder; the exact yield is not settled, so plan on 3 and treat anything extra as a tip from the management.
• They never grow back. There are 28 iron deposits in the whole world, the three Quarry rocks included. At 3 ore each that is 84 ore: 84 Iron Ingots at Furnace II, or 112 if you take the Fireman talent first.
• Quarry rocks pay twice. Each break of a Quarry iron rock also gives you 3 red tech points.
• Getting there. The Forest opens with the Forest Pass from Into the Forest: repair the Village’s Royal Postbox, bring Jully the certificate it delivers, then show the pass at the Forest Post west of the Village. The story sends you to the Quarry around the same time. The Forest has no Milestone of its own; the Quarry post (6 Faith) is one of the nearest.

Reaching the mastery iron asks for

Iron boulders check your Smithing mastery, not the pickaxe’s tier. Any pickaxe swings, but below Smithing 3 the rock will not break. Every tool in your tool belt counts even when you are not holding it, one tool per kind, so for Smithing that means one hammer and one small-tool set.

For a short push, Soldier’s stew adds +2 Smithing for 7 minutes 30 seconds (Tavern, from level 3). For a lasting one, the Heat Handler talent, which hangs under the third Smithing mastery node, gives +2 Smithing on iron work such as Iron Ingots, Iron Nails and Iron Detail. The talents and inspirations guide explains how to buy nodes.

Buying iron: the Trademaster and the town shops

The Trademaster’s ore

The Trademaster on the Main Pier opens his shop once you finish Crystal Clear by handing him 3 Lens. From his first level he stocks 10 Iron Ore at a base price of 1 silver.

That base price only holds while his shelf is full. A trader’s price scales with the square root of normal stock over current stock, so each ore costs more than the last: the first five cost about 5 silver 66 bronze together, while clearing all ten costs about 15 silver 87 bronze. Buy in small lots and let the shelf refill. He also buys ore back, at about 75 bronze each at his usual stock, a poor deal for something that becomes an ingot.

The Bishop and Harold may also hold Iron Ore in their stock, but neither has been confirmed selling it: both trade through dialogue only, the Bishop in Steel Ingots and Harold in Special Wood. Plan your bought iron around the Trademaster.

Iron parts from the town shops

You cannot buy ingots, but you can buy what ingots become. Once the shop reaches level 2:

Making your own parts is cheaper once your anvil runs, since one ore at about 1 silver becomes one ingot. Buying is how you skip the Smithing 6 wall: four Iron Details and a Reinforced Beam from the shops open a Factory entrance in the house basement before you have ever lit an Iron Anvil, as long as you have the Building mastery the blockage asks for (up to Building 8). The Polished Bronze that Furnace II needs is on sale too, at the Smithy, Jeweler and Furniture Maker from level 1.

The iron mine: Old Mine and the Zombie Miner

The Old Mine runs under the forest between the Quarry and the Factory. Its own deposits are marble, but it holds the one spot that matters: the Zombie Miner, your only free, endless source of Iron Ore and the only source of Coal at all.

Opening the mine from both ends

1. Quarry side. After the Forest Pass, start Can’t See The Forest for the Iron: ask Larry at home to pose as Robert, the dead leader of the Forest bandits, give him 1 Simple Candle, then collect the Dynamite at the bandit camp. Blow the caved-in cave at the back of the Quarry with it, at Building 8. The Apothecary sells Simple Candles if you have not researched them.
2. Factory side. The blockage between the mine and the Factory hall takes 4 Building Kit I and 1 Reinforced Beam, again at Building 8.
3. Research. With both ends open, the hidden zombie gathering technologies appear, Zombie Mining among them: 60 red and 10 blue points, after Iron Smithing. It unlocks the Zombie Miner and the Porter Station.

Building and staffing the Zombie Miner

• Cost: 2 Wooden Plank + 4 Brick, refunded in full if you demolish it.
• Output: 1 Iron Ore and 2 Coal per 8-tick cycle, with no ingredients, plus 1 red tech point for the zombie each cycle.
• Worker: any zombie holding a pickaxe. The job needs only Building 1, so skulls and perks are optional. The mine has room for at least one Zombie Miner; a second spot is reported but not confirmed.

Mastery makes each tick count double or triple, capped at three times, so the pickaxe in the zombie’s hand sets the pace:

The Zombie Miner perk sits in the zombie’s Smithing tree and costs 100 red points after the first Smithing mastery node (50 red). Since the miner earns 1 red point per cycle, it earns the 150 points for both nodes on its own in 150 cycles, and two red skulls should be enough to hold the pair. Magpie’s Eye adds a 10% chance of a Gem per cycle, but it costs 500 red deep in the Building tree; without it the mine never gives gems. The zombies guide covers skulls and training.

Getting the ore out

Build the Old Mine’s Porter Station (2 Wooden Plank + 4 Brick), put a second zombie on it and tick Iron Ore and Coal in its window: nothing is ticked by default. It carries both to the Factory’s ore and coal heaps. Those heaps share their contents with the stockpiles in the Yard by the house, so the same ore is there for you to pick up for hand smelting.

Smelting routes compared

There are two ways to turn ore into ingots, and they are built for different kinds of ore.

Furnace II: the most iron per ore, with Fireman

• Unlock path. Iron Forge sits right after Bronze Polishing and costs 130 red points from a fresh tree, prerequisites included. It also unlocks the Supply: Iron crate. Furnace II is a separate building from Furnace I and keeps all its recipes.
• The Polished Bronze wall. Furnace II needs 2 Polished Bronze, which you make at a Woodworking Workbench with a Tool Rack at Building 5 from Bronze Detail, Sand and Melted Fat. If that chain is not running yet, buy the two pieces in town.
• Take Fireman first. One inspiration point in the Smithing tree, right after the first mastery node, turns every 3-ore batch into 4 ingots: a third more iron from the same rock. Without it, Furnace II gives one ingot per ore, no better than the Factory Smithy. On finite boulders, at 3 ore per deposit, that is the difference between 84 and 112 ingots.
• Fuel math. A Firewood shed turns 2 Firewood into 20 Fuel, so one iron batch burns 3 Firewood. One Short Log at the Chopping Spot gives 10 Firewood (15 with Axeman), which is 100 Fuel. A single Log sawn into 3 Short Logs at the Sawhorse therefore covers 10 batches: 30 ingots, or 40 with Fireman.
• Shed size. Firewood shed I holds 100 Fuel, three iron batches. Firewood shed II holds 500, sixteen batches, and saves a lot of walking.
• Empty it. A finished batch sits in the furnace, and the next one will not start until you collect it. A zombie can work the furnace, and a Zombie Supplier Station in the Yard fetches ore from open chests and clears the output, so a long queue smelts while you dig graves.

Factory Smithy: endless iron, if you have Coal

• The recipe trap. The Smithy I technology gives the station plus Brick and Glass. The Iron Ingot recipe only arrives with Smithy: Hammer, the next node.
• Coal comes from one place. The Zombie Miner is the only source of Coal, and no trader sells or buys it. Before the Old Mine runs, the Smithy cannot make a single ingot.
• The ratio works out. Each miner cycle brings 1 ore and 2 Coal; each ingot uses 1 of each, so you keep 1 spare Coal per cycle for a Brick or Glass Smithy. At full speed (an iron pickaxe on the miner, Smithing 6 on the smith) both take 3 ticks, so one miner feeds one ingot Smithy. With the Zombie Miner perk the miner runs half again faster, and the surplus ore can go to Furnace II.
• Full speed for the smith. Smithing 6 means a Steel Hammer, or an Iron Hammer plus two Smithing nodes. The zombie perk Advanced Blacksmith adds +4 on iron recipes, and Factory Operative cuts 2 ticks from every Smithy ingot.

The whole chain, from heap to belt to Iron Kit I, is laid out in the Factory automation guide.

Which route, when

• Early: boulders into Furnace II, with Fireman bought first. Spend the first ingots on the anvil and tools (below).
• Middle: top up from the Trademaster five ore at a time; buy Iron Detail, Iron Nails and Reinforced Beams from level 2 shops to bridge gaps.
• Late: the Zombie Miner feeds a Factory Smithy for kits and crates, and Furnace II burns any surplus ore, since with Fireman it still gets the most ingots per ore.

Where your iron goes

The first six ingots

1. Two for the Iron Anvil (2 Iron Ingot + 4 Piece of stone, unlocked by Iron Smithing, 50 red).
2. One for 6 Iron Detail (Iron Works, 75 red).
3. Three, with those 6 Iron Details and 6 Sticks, for an Iron Hammer, an Iron Pickaxe and an Iron Axe (Iron Instruments I and II, 80 red and 15 blue each, with a Hardening Bucket beside the anvil).

That is two Furnace II batches, and it leaves you with +4 Smithing from the hammer and the Building 8 the Old Mine asks for. The anvil recipes want Smithing 6, one more than smelting: buy a third mastery node, eat a Soldier’s stew, or buy the Iron Hammer at the Smithy and Iron tools at the Jeweler (Smithing 6 with no talents at all) and forge only the pickaxe and axe.

Everything else that eats iron

Jack’s town orders ask for 1 Supply: Iron crate, then 5 at his next level, and they pay mostly in Likes (the town orders guide explains why). Note that the hand-packed crate needs 6 ingots and the Factory one needs 8, so pack early crates yourself. The crafting calculator breaks five crates down to raw ore.

Iron Kit I: anvil or Smithy

At the Iron Anvil with a Hardening Bucket, one ingot makes one Iron Kit I at Smithing 7. At a Factory Smithy with the Hammer extension, one ingot makes four, at Smithing 3. The first stage of the eleven Town shops you can build takes 18 to 20 kits, depending on which market stall you leave out (19 without the Fish Stand): 19 ingots the slow way, 5 the Factory way. Read the town restoration guide before you hammer them out one by one.

Iron into coin, or into gold

• Weapons and tools sell at a fixed price. An Iron Sword (2 Iron Ingot + 3 Iron Detail + 2 Stick) is worth 30 silver, an Iron Shovel (1 Iron Ingot + 2 Iron Detail + 2 Stick) 17 silver 50, and the Smithy buys both from level 2. That is roughly 12 to 13 silver per ingot, against 75 bronze for the raw ore. Town shop purses are small, so take part of the price in goods from the same shelf. More in the money-making guide.
• A Philosopher Stone belongs on an ingot. At the Formulation Bench, a Philosopher Stone turns 1 Iron Ingot into a Golden ingot worth 1 gold (Anatomy 8). Used on Iron Ore it only makes a Golden nugget worth 1 silver, and the stone itself costs 50 silver at the Alchemist’s third level. The recipes come with Alchemy, Advanced; see the gold guide.
• Iron does not become steel. Steel Ingots are bought from the Bishop for 1 silver each after Man of Steel. The steel guide covers the route.

Common mistakes

• Blaming the pickaxe. A better pickaxe does not open iron boulders. Smithing 3 does.
• Smelting boulder ore before taking Fireman. Without it you lose one ingot in every four, from rocks that never come back.
• Selling Iron Ore to the Trademaster. About 75 bronze each, for something worth 12 silver or more once it is a sword.
• Emptying his shelf in one visit. The last ore costs about three times the first. Buy a few at a time.
• Building a Smithy and waiting for ingots. The recipe needs the Smithy: Hammer technology and Coal, and Coal only exists once the Zombie Miner runs.
• Looking for Zombie Mining in the tree too early. It stays hidden until both ends of the Old Mine are open.
• Leaving a finished batch in Furnace II. The next batch does not start until you collect the last one.
• Making Iron Kit I at the anvil once the Factory runs. The Smithy with the Hammer makes four per ingot.
• Packing Supply: Iron on the Assembly bench when ingots are short. The workbench version takes 6 ingots instead of 8.
• Using a Philosopher Stone on ore. A 50 silver stone for a 1 silver nugget.
• Hunting for Iron Scrap. It has no source in update 1.008.