Stardew Valley: Tools

Uses of Tools and Upgrades for Special Abilities

Your farmer starts with 5 tools in Stardew Valley and soon gets a sixth. These are core to your efforts to clean up the farm, gather resources for crafting, make money, and explore the world. The six tools you get can be upgraded by visiting the Blacksmith in town. You can reach him by going to the bottom right corner of the village, crossing the bridge to the east, and heading north past the museum. Each tool upgrade does something different, though they all make the item more effective. In order to upgrade, you must have one of four metals - Copper, Iron, Gold, and Iridium. Because of this and that most people will want the upgraded version of each tool, I'll write on how you can get each of those metals at the bottom of this guide.

Tools in Stardew Valley

All tools start normal quality, bronze is an upgrade from that. Some tools simply become more effective and let you use less energy to get the job done (like the Axe and Pickaxe) while others - namely the Hoe, Fishing Rods, and Watering Can - gain special abilities while also being more effective. The axe and pickaxe can let you access new areas as they're upgraded, by allowing you a way to clear blockages and get to the other side.

Axe

The regular axe can chop down a tree with 15 hits and breaks small logs to let you gather wood, seeds, and sap. Upgrades greatly improve on that, enhancing your character's ability to gather wood. At first, it cannot break the large stumps on the farm property nor logs. Upgrading the Axe gives you much better access to hardwood, which is a useful crafting ingredient.

Hoe

The Hoe not only allows you to till soil in order to plant seeds, it also helps you to dig up areas and collect items from doing so. Upgrades to it make preparing a farm much faster, as well as your ability to forage in areas like the Beach.

Pickaxe

The Pickaxe is used to break open rocks and ore veins. Upgrades to the pickaxe reduce the number of hits need to break a rock, while also letting you break open bigger rocks such as the large 2x2 stones on the farm property.

Watering Can

The Watering Can tool lets you ensure your plants continue to grow and is essential to early farming. Even fully grown plants need water if they are going to continue to produce fruits and vegetables. Ensuring they're watered every day requires your farmer to use this, to do it manually, or sprinklers. Sprinklers are very expensive and only work on a small area at first, so you'll be relying on this a lot. Upgrade the watering can either during winter or when it's going to rain the next day for maximum efficiency. Thankfully, upgrades to the watering can increase its effectiveness and let you hit more blocks at once while also holding vastly more water. A normal watering can holds 40 uses of water.

Fishing Pole

The fishing pole is not upgraded like other tools. Your first fishing pole is given to you, allowing you to catch fish. Later, at levels 2 and 6 you can buy better rods from Willy at the docks shop. These, along with better bait and tackle become available for purchase whenever your character unlocks the ability to craft them. The first pole cannot use bait, the second can use bait but not tackle. Later you can use bait and tackle at the same time, which makes fishing much more efficient.

Scythe

The Scythe lets you clear grass and other plants from the farm. All tools can clear bigger plants, but the scythe has a sweeping animation that hits about 180 degrees in front of your character, so it's much more energy-efficient. Having a Scythe with one or more Silos on the farm will result in hay being collected for your animals to eat when they cannot go outside to graze - most notably during Winter. The Scythe is the only tool that doesn't get upgrades, though it doesn't really need it and is only used situationally.

Upgrading Tools to Copper, Iron, Gold, and Iridium Quality

The axe, pickaxe, water can, and hoe can all be upgraded at the blacksmith, whose shop is located near the bridge at the bottom right of the town. Take the bridge then head north to see his shop. Bring your tool to the Blacksmith (open 9-5), along with several thousand gold and five metal bars. You must go through a series of upgrades, beginning with copper, then iron, gold, and iridium for the four tools that can be upgraded in this way. Each upgrade is more expensive than the last.

The Blacksmith will give you the item back in 2 game days. Simply walk up to the counter when it's done, and you'll be given the upgraded version. Because you cannot use tools while they're being upgraded, it's wise to wait until you know you won't need them. This is especially obvious with the watering can. You can wait until it's going to rain the next day, then go in for the upgrade. This will let you pickup the tool on the 2nd day, regardless of if it's rained, and can then water your crops.

Getting Copper, Iron, Gold, and Iridium

Obtaining copper, iron, gold, and iridium is generally done with mining. However, you can buy the first three from the blacksmith. In the case of upgrading a tool, this can be rather expensive. You need 5 ore per bar, and 5 bars - so you need to buy a whopping 25 ore in order to get enough bars for an upgrade. You'd also need 5 coal and have a furnace on your farm so that you can smelt the bars. See Getting Copper, a Furnace, and Coal. The bars can be obtained freely in the mine, but only spawn on certain levels. It's random but ore spawns on the following levels of the mine:

• Copper - Spawns more heavily as you approach mine level 20-39. Higher is better. On your way there, you're likely to pick up a couple dozen of them by the time you reach the sweet spot. You can return the next day to find everything respawned and use the elevator to farm more copper. Be aware that the level 30s have a lot of dark areas, so you may want to bring torches (made from the crafting menu).
• Iron - Spawns more frequently in the 60-79 range of the mines. Iron respawns just like copper and you'll gain lots of mining and combat experience by venturing this deep in the mines. Also, you will eventually grow powerful enough to tackle the end of the mine and move on to the more challenging Skull Cavern. When you reach this area, check out the adventurer's guild (opens after 2PM) for a better weapon that will make going into this part of the mine a trivial affair.
• Gold - Spawns more frequently in the 90-119 range - all the way to the bottom of the mines. Yep, you have to go pretty far, but as noted it's worth it for the mining experience. Take only necessary tools, plenty of food to heal yourself and tread carefully. The mines are much less challenging after level 90, as you get a nice weapon for reaching that level of the mine.
• Iridium - Iridium tools are upgraded the same as the rest, but you must venture to the Skull Cavern to do it. The Skull Cavern requires you to both get the key from the bottom of the mines, and also come up with 42,500 G to complete the vault bundles at the community center (requires several bundles to be completed to be unlocked). Finishing this group of bundles will result in Pam taking the position of bus driver, which lets you ride for 500G. You'll go to Calico Desert where you can use the Skull Key. Each level deeper in the cavern makes Iridium more likely to spawn, but this place does not have elevators like the regular mine. This means you must start at the beginning for each trip.

Practice going deeper into the mines, and you'll eventually be able to upgrade all 4 of your tools to Iridium!