How To Upgrade The Workbench in Valheim

Have you ever tried to put something together without a sturdy, flat work surface? Like on your lap or a couch or something? It’s horrible, right? Nothing stays where you want it to, little pieces are always sliding away, there’s nowhere to hang your tools, it’s just awful. I guess that’s why a good workbench is vital for any long-term construction projects. Of course, a flat work surface will suffice at first, but if you wanna get some real construction done, you’re gonna have to step it up a bit. Here’s how to upgrade the workbench in Valheim.

Your initial workbench in Valheim can do plenty of crafting on its own, offering plenty of handy tools, items, and simple constructs. It’s plenty possible to build all the important stuff with a vanilla bench and your crafting hammer, but if you’re really serious about construction, you’ll want to upgrade that sucker with some more diverse equipment.

How To Upgrade The Workbench in Valheim

In order to upgrade your workbench, you’ll need to unlock recipes for workbench upgrades. Currently, there are three upgrades available:

1. Chopping Block
2. Tanning Rack
3. Adze

You’ll have to get these upgrades in that particular order. Starting with the chopping block, the first step is to build a workbench, which I’m guessing you’ve done already, and then acquire at least one piece of flint. This’ll put the recipe in your inventory. Using your hammer’s construction menu, create the chopping block upgrade from 10 pieces of wood and 10 pieces of flint. When you’ve got it, simply place it on the ground right next to your workbench, and it’ll automatically upgrade it to level 2.

Upgrading to levels 3 and 4 with the tanning rack and the adze follow the same basic procedure, though you’ll need to complete a couple of small tasks to get the recipes. For the tanning rack, you just have to kill one deer. For the adze, you’ll have to collect a piece of fine wood from a birch tree, and craft some bronze nails, which in turn requires forge-smelted bronze ingots). 

At the moment, level 4 is the highest your workbench can go, but since Valheim is still in early access, that could change later. I wonder if we could make something cool like a lathe or whatever…