Valheim Copper, Tin, and Bronze Guide: First Black Forest Metal Route
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Bring the right tool and mark separate jobs
Kill Eikthyr, make the Antler Pickaxe at a covered workbench with 10 Wood and 1 Hard Antler, repair it, then enter the Black Forest with Rested active and three foods. Copper deposits are large greenish rocks in the forest. Tin appears as smaller dark deposits beside Black Forest water. Mark each copper boulder, a tin shoreline, nearby Burial Chambers, and the safe Meadows edge separately. Copper, tin, dungeon runs, and ore transport are different jobs; treating one long trip as all four is how an early metal haul turns into a corpse run.
Mine near the exposed deposit first, then check the ground around it before assuming the visible top was the whole resource. Keep an eye on the pickaxe durability and your carry weight. Return before your food fades or night makes the forest hard to read. A roofed workbench, fire, chest, and bed on a safe edge make a useful staging camp, but do not move the whole home just because you found one copper boulder.
Build the processing chain from Burial Chamber cores
The first metal structures need Surtling Cores from Burial Chambers. Bring a club, shield, food, torch, and an inventory slot for cores; skeletons and narrow rooms make an empty-stamina rush expensive. Five cores make a Charcoal Kiln (20 Stone, 5 Surtling Cores), and five make a Smelter (20 Stone, 5 Surtling Cores). The kiln turns Wood into Coal; the smelter consumes Coal and ore to make bars.
At the base or a protected processing camp, make coal first, then load the smelter with Copper Ore and Tin Ore. Build a Forge with 10 Wood, 4 Stone, 4 Coal, and 6 Copper. Use the forge to combine 2 Copper and 1 Tin into one Bronze. Ore is not bronze until both ores have been smelted into bars and the bars have gone through the forge recipe.
Keep chests labelled for ore, coal, bars, and bronze. It prevents a common early mistake: spending the last copper bar on a weapon and discovering there is no copper left to make the forge or its next tool.
Spend the first bars on repeatable progress
The exact first bronze item depends on whether your next problem is trees, farming, combat, or mining. A Bronze Axe opens better wood access; a Cultivator starts a renewable food loop; a Bronze Pickaxe improves mining. Pick one job that makes the next expedition easier before buying a full armour set.
On normal portal settings, carry finished tools, food, and ordinary supplies through portals, but plan the copper and tin route as physical transport because those metals are restricted. A boat, cart, or closer processing camp is part of the route. If your world uses a portal modifier that allows all items, the restriction is changed for that world. The later Stone Portal is a separate high-tier structure, not a reason to assume every early wooden portal takes metal.
Once your forge loop works, keep extra food and a recovery kit by the bed. The next Black Forest target is The Elder, not an endless pile of raw ore.