Raft: Bricks and the Smelter

Two smelters built on the raft in Raft, one smelting ore and one prompting to place metal ore

Back at the raft: bricks, then a Smelter

Once your foundations are built out enough to have some spare deck space, you can start setting up the stations that produce your gear. First is the Smelter, which is what the clay, sand, and ore from those island dives are for.

An overview of a developed raft with a sail, storage and long rows of collection nets in Raft
The raft built out: sail, storage, and long rows of nets doing the gathering (now filling in past the every-other spacing), with open deck to spare for stations like the Smelter.

Building the Smelter is a two-step job. First craft six Wet Bricks, each costing two sand and two clay, so the dozen of each you hauled up covers the six the Smelter build itself needs. Then place the wet bricks out on your deck and leave them for a few minutes: they dry on their own into Dry Bricks. Pick the dry bricks back up, and those are what the Smelter recipe calls for. Once the Smelter is standing you can feed it your metal and copper ore and start turning them into usable Metal Ingots and Copper Ingots.

The Wet Brick recipe in Raft, two sand and two clay, which can be placed on the raft to dry
Wet Brick: two sand and two clay each. Its note reads “can be placed on your raft to dry.” Make six.
Wet bricks placed on the raft deck to dry into dry bricks in Raft
Set the wet bricks down on the deck (R to rotate) and leave them to dry. They turn into Dry Bricks you can pick back up.
Bricks drying on the raft deck in Raft, the pale ones dried into dry bricks ready to pick up
A few minutes later they harden: the pale ones are Dry Bricks now, ready to pick up (E), while the grey ones are still curing.

The Smelter recipe doesn’t appear until you’ve researched a brick. The six bricks above go into the Smelter build itself, so to unlock the recipe you make one more Wet Brick, another two sand and two clay, let it dry, and feed that seventh Dry Brick into the Research Table. Researching the Dry Brick there is what makes the Smelter usable, which is why you want seven bricks, not six. Count ahead of time, because coming up a brick short means another island run to dig up the extra sand and clay. Most crafting ingredients work this way: a recipe stays hidden until you’ve researched each of its components, spending one of each at the Research Table (blueprints are a separate unlock path), so get in the habit of setting aside a spare of any new material for research before you spend the rest on building.

Gathering sand and clay deposits on the seabed near an island in Raft with the Plastic Hook
Back on the seabed for the last brick’s sand and clay. Sand is the pale lumps, clay the darker, brownish deposits, and both come up with the hook like everything else down here.

With the extra sand and clay dug up and a seventh brick made, drop one brick into the Research Table and hit Research. The Smelter takes four planks, six Dry Bricks, four scrap, and six nails, and it “can smelt metal ore, sand and seaweed,” turning your raw ore into the metal the next tier of gear is built from. Build two so you can smelt in parallel.

Researching a dry brick at the Research Table in Raft to unlock the Smelter recipe
Researching a Dry Brick, the step that makes the Smelter recipe show up in the Other tab.
The unlocked Smelter recipe in Raft, requiring planks, dry bricks, scrap and nails, smelts metal ore sand and seaweed
The Smelter recipe: four planks, six Dry Bricks, four scrap, six nails. It smelts metal ore, sand, and seaweed into usable materials.
Two smelters built on the raft in Raft, one smelting ore and one prompting to place metal ore
Two Smelters up and running. The left one is already working; press E to drop ore into the other. Feed them your metal ore, sand, and seaweed and they do the rest.

The Smelter does more than metal. Feed it copper ore and you get copper ingots, feed it sand and you get glass, and seaweed cooks down into Vine Goo. The same research rule from before applies here: each of these smelted outputs is a brand-new ingredient, so you have to research a copper ingot, a pane of glass, and so on at the Research Table before any recipe that uses them will show up. Smelt a little extra of each and set one aside for research.

Two smelters in Raft, one smelting copper ore into a copper ingot and one turning sand into glass
Both smelters working: copper ore glowing down into a copper ingot on the left, sand turning to glass on the right. Research each new ingot or pane to unlock what it builds.
Picking up a finished Vine Goo pot on the raft deck in Raft
Seaweed smelts down into Vine Goo. Research it once you have a spare, the same as any new smelted output.
A pot of finished Vine Goo, glowing green, ready to pick up in Raft
A finished pot of Vine Goo. It goes into Circuit Boards later on, so keep smelting a little whenever you pass seaweed.