Crafting

The crafting screen

“

Now this is a nice weapon. Click to listen — The Sniper on self-crafted weapons

”

Crafting is an in-game system that allows players to create specific items, such as a weapon, a hat, or materials for further crafting, using unwanted or duplicate items gained normally via the Item drop system. To create these items, the player must follow blueprints, some of which are initially available and others which must be discovered by the player through experimentation. After following a valid and undiscovered blueprint recipe, the player will gain both the item specified by the blueprint, and the recipe. If the player attempts to craft an item without a corresponding blueprint, they will be notified that no such recipe exists and no items will be crafted.

Stock items that appear in the standard backpack as a result of using a Name Tag or Description Tag on them cannot be crafted (e.g. Two named Scatterguns cannot be crafted into scrap metal). Tools also cannot be crafted under any circumstances, including Paint Cans, Name Tags, Description Tags, Crate Keys, and Dueling Mini-Games. Contrary to popular belief, crafting two unusual hats will result in a typical hat being crafted, not another unusual. Crafting was introduced in the War update.

Blueprints

Metal

Scrap Metal
^{Level 1 Crafting Item}

Reclaimed Metal
^{Level 2 Crafting Item}

Refined Metal
^{Level 3 Crafting Item}

Unusual Haunted Metal Scrap
^{Level 4 Crafting Item}

Blueprint	Requires	Produces
Smelt Primary Weapons †	2 x Identical primary weapons E.g. +	1 x
Smelt Secondary Weapons †	2 x Identical secondary weapons E.g. +	1 x
Smelt Melee Weapons †	2 x Identical melee weapons E.g. +	1 x
Smelt Class Weapons	Any 2 weapons wielded by the same class E.g. + (Spy weapons)	1 x
Smelt Tokens	3 x Tokens E.g. + +	1 x
Combine Scrap Metal	3 x	1 x
Combine Reclaimed Metal	3 x	1 x
Smelt Refined Metal	1 x	3 x
Smelt Reclaimed Metal	1 x	3 x

^† The Smelt Class Weapons blueprint was originally one Primary, Secondary, and Melee weapon of each class, but was then altered to allow any 3 (now 2) weapons from the same class, to accommodate the Sniper and Spy, who only had items for two loadout slots when the Sniper vs. Spy Update launched. This has made the blueprints marked with a "†" superfluous.

Tokens

Blueprint	Requires	Produces
Fabricate Class Token	3 weapons from one class E.g. + + (Heavy weapons)	1 x Class Token E.g. 1 x
Fabricate Slot Token	3 weapons from one slot E.g. Medic + Sniper + Soldier	1 x Slot Token E.g. 1 x
Rebuild Class Token	Any 1 Class Token and another class weapon E.g. + (Soldier weapon)	1 x Class Token E.g. 1 x
Rebuild Slot Token	Any 1 Slot Token and another slot weapon E.g. + (Pyro weapon)	1 x Slot Token E.g. 1 x

Notes: When 3 identical weapons are used, the player is given the option of creating a Class Token or a Slot Token, and despite the fact that the Fabricate Slot Token blueprint can be discovered when attempting to do so, three Camera Beards cannot be crafted into a Misc Token, and will not be consumed. Additionally, if the player uses a Pain Train with a Class Token, or 3 Pain Trains and chooses to create a Class Token, it will always result in a Soldier Token.

Headgear

Blueprint	Requires	Produces
Fabricate Headgear	3 x	1 x Random Headgear
Fabricate Class Headgear	4 x + 1 x	1 x Class Headgear
Rebuild Headgear	2 x Headgear (NOTE: Not all headgear is craftable!)	1 x Random Headgear
Fabricate Bonk Helm†	1 x + 2 x	1 x
Fabricate Milkman	4 x + 1 x or or	1 x
Fabricate Grenadier's Softcap	4 x + 1 x or	1 x
Fabricate Attendant	4 x + 1 x or	1 x
Fabricate Ol' Snaggletooth	4 x + 1 x or or	1 x
Fabricate Familiar Fez	4 x + 1 x or	1 x
Fabricate Halloween Headgear	4 x + 1 x	1 x or 1 x
Fabricate Saxton Hale Mask	1x + 1 x + 1 x + 1 x + 1 x + 1 x + 1 x + 1 x + 1 x	1 x

Note: As of March 19th, 2010, both Hats and Miscellaneous items are considered headgear.

^† The Batter's Helmet's properties will not be retained when crafted into a Bonk Helm. This includes level, vintage status, unusual status, applied paint, customized name and customized description. The level will be randomized.

Weapons

Class	Blueprint	Requires	Produces	Total Cost
All	Fabricate Class Weapons	1 x + 1 x + 1 x E.g. + + E.g. + +	1 x Class Weapon E.g. E.g. or	8 weapons
Scout	Fabricate Shortstop	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons
	Fabricate Crit-a-Cola	1 x + 1 x	1 x	2 weapons
	Fabricate Mad Milk	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons
	Fabricate Holy Mackerel	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons
	Fabricate Boston Basher	1 x + 1 x	1 x	2 weapons
	Fabricate Candy Cane	1 x + 1 x	1 x	2 weapons
Soldier	Fabricate Black Box	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons
	Fabricate Battalion's Backup	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons
	Fabricate Gunboats	1 x + 1 x	1 x	2 weapons
	Fabricate Pain Train	1 x + 1 x	1 x	3 weapons
Pyro	Fabricate Degreaser	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons
	Fabricate Powerjack	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons
	Fabricate Homewrecker	1 x + 1	1 x	2 weapons
	Fabricate Back Scratcher	1 x + 1	1 x	2 weapons
Demoman	Fabricate Scotsman's Skullcutter	1 x + 1 x	1 x	2 weapons
	Fabricate Pain Train	1 x + 1 x	1 x	3 weapons
	Fabricate Unusual Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker	2 x + 1 x + 1 x	1 x	37 weapons
	Fabricate Loch-n-Load	2 x + 1 x	1 x	13 weapons
	Fabricate Ullapool Caber	2 x + 1 x	1 x	13 weapons
	Fabricate Claidheamh Mòr	1 x + 1 x	1 x	2 weapons
Heavy	Fabricate Dalokohs Bar	1 x + 1 x	1 x	2 weapons
	Fabricate Gloves of Running Urgently	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons
	Fabricate Brass Beast	2 x + 1 x	1 x	13 weapons
	Fabricate Warrior's Spirit	2 x + 1 x	1 x	13 weapons
	Fabricate Buffalo Steak Sandvich	1 x + 1 x	1 x	2 weapons
	Fabricate Fists of Steel	2 x + 1 x	1 x	5 weapons
Engineer	Fabricate Southern Hospitality	1 x + 1 x	1 x	3 weapons
	Fabricate Jag	2 x + 1 x	1 x	5 weapons
Medic	Fabricate Vita-Saw	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons
	Fabricate Amputator	2 x + 1 x	1 x	13 weapons
	Fabricate Crusader's Crossbow	2 x + 1 x	1 x	13 weapons
Sniper	Fabricate Sydney Sleeper	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons
	Fabricate Darwin's Danger Shield	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons
	Fabricate Tribalman's Shiv	1 x + 1 x	1 x	2 weapons
	Fabricate Bushwacka	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons
Spy	Fabricate L'Etranger	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons
	Fabricate Your Eternal Reward	1 x + 1 x	1 x	7 weapons

Cost summary table

The table below lists the total cost of using a recipe in number of weapons, as well as the smelt value of the produced item in further recipes.

Item	Total crafting cost	Smelt value
Scrap Metal	2 weapons	2 weapons
Class or Slot Token	3 weapons	2 weapons = ⅓ Reclaimed Metal
Reclaimed Metal	6 weapons = 3 Scrap Metal or via 3 Tokens = 9 Weapons	6 weapons
Class-specific Weapon	8 weapons = 1 Scrap Metal + 1 Class Token + 1 Slot Token	1 weapon
Refined Metal	18 weapons = 9 Scrap Metal = 3 Reclaimed Metal	18 weapons
Random Headgear	2 headgear or 54 weapons = 27 Scrap Metal = 9 Reclaimed Metal = 3 Refined Metal	1 headgear
Set Headgear	73 weapons = (36 Scrap metal = 12 Reclaimed Metal = 4 Refined Metal) + 1 Weapon From the Desired Set	1 headgear
Class-specific Headgear	75 weapons = (36 Scrap metal = 12 Reclaimed Metal = 4 Refined Metal) + 3 weapons (1 Class Token of desired class)	1 headgear

Crafting weapon classifications

Contrasting the weapon slots in-game, the crafting system classifies some weapons in different slots. An example of this is the Spy's Revolver, which is not a primary weapon contrary to it being in the first slot in-game. Below is a list of all the usable weapons and what slots the crafting system uses. Note that the table does not include the stock weapons for the classes, such as the Scattergun, as these are not usable in crafting.

Class	Primary weapons	Secondary weapons	Melee weapons	PDAs	Tokens
Scout	•	• •	• • •
Soldier	• •	• •	•
Pyro	•		• • •
Demoman	• •		• • • • •
Heavy	•	• •	• • •
Engineer			• • •
Medic	•		• •
Sniper	•	• •	•
Spy		•		•

Golden Wrench

Main article: Golden Wrench

• From July 5 to July 9, 2010, players crafting any items in-game had the chance of finding 1 of 100 of an extremely rare item, the Golden Wrench. A series of times when a Wrench was designed to drop was utilized by Valve, and when a player crafted an item after one of these times, a random drop could occur giving the player their crafted item and a Golden Wrench. When a Wrench was found, it would be announced to all online Team Fortress 2 servers at once in the form of a dialogue box in the center of the screen and an accompanying soundbite. This was only available before and leading up to the Engineer update, until all 100 wrenches were found. An announcement was also shown when one of these wrenches was destroyed. These wrenches have the ability to turn ragdolls into gold statues, but are otherwise identical to the default Wrench.
• Due to this event, the Smelt Reclaimed and Refined Metal blueprints were temporarily disabled until all of the 100 Golden Wrenches had been acquired, to stop people from endlessly smelting and re-crafting their Metal until they got one. These blueprints were disabled up until the Mann-Conomy Update, even though the Engineer Update was completed and no Golden Wrenches could be found.

Related Achievements

Sackston Hale Craft the Saxton Hale Mask.

Previous Changes

December 17, 2009 Patch

• Added item crafting

December 18, 2009 Patch

• Added a new chat message when players craft an item

December 22, 2009 Patch

• Added an "equipped" tag to currently equipped items in the Backpack and Crafting screens
• Crafting improvements:
  • Spy's Camera Beard can now be smelted into scrap metal
  • Recipes can no longer produce items matching any of the items used in the crafting
  • Added some new recipes

January 13, 2010 Patch

• Minor fixes to the crafting UI:
  • Changed the item layout in the crafting panel to better fit the backpack panel
  • Each 1 of the 4 crafting pages now shows half of 1 of the 2 backpack pages
  • Fixed the crafting panel next/prev page buttons being hard to use while dragging
  • Fixed the "equipped" label in the item panels stealing the mouse focus from the item panel itself

January 28, 2010 Patch

• Fixed the hats below being included in the crafting of class-specific hats using class tokens
  • Towering Pillar of Hats
  • Noble Amassment of Hats
  • Modest Pile of Hat

March 19, 2010 Patch

• Updated the new community-built hats so they can be crafted
• Updated the Camera Beard and Medic mask so they can be crafted as hats

April 28, 2010 Patch

• Backpack changes
  • Moved Crafting button out to the root class/backpack selection panel.
  • Dragging and dropping items in your backpack now makes appropriate sounds.

May 21, 2010 Patch

• Moved the "Whiskered Gentleman" to the Misc loadout slot

June 10, 2010 Patch

• Overhauled the main menu, and added help to Loadout, Backpack, and Crafting screens.

July 8, 2010 Patch

• Undocumented changes
  • Added a second Misc. item slot in the loadout.

August 17, 2010 Patch

• Fixed servers trying to validate backpack positions in inventories.
• Fixed clients validating inventories other than their own.
• Fixed item selection HUD elements showing un-acknowledged items, which resulted in items in invalid backpack positions.

September 30, 2010 Patch

• Added the Mann-Conomy.
• Added 65 new items (hats, weapons, tools, minigames, gifts, crates).
• Added the Mann Co. Store & Catalog.
• Added Trading.
• Added Item customization.

October 6, 2010 Patch

• Economy Changes
  • Added Remove Name and Remove Paint features.
  • Achievement items and store promotion items are now usable in crafting.
  • Gifted items are now craftable and tradable.
  • Attempting to craft a non tradable item will result in a warning that the items produced by the craft will also be marked as non tradable.
  • Community, Self-Made, and Valve items are not tradable or usable in crafting.
  • Changed "Not Craftable" description to "Not Usable in Crafting" to increase clarity.

October 8, 2010 Patch

• Undocumented changes
  • Added crafting blueprints for Polycount Pack set hats.

December 17, 2010 Patch

• Increased backpack size by 100 slots.
• Added the Backpack Expander.

Other undocumented changes:

• The recipe for Scrap Metal was previously 3 primary, secondary, or melee weapons.
• When Miscellaneous items were first separated from Hats, due to players wanting to equip the Camera Beard and other Spy hats simultaneously, the Camera Beard began dropping at the same rate as weapons. It was not unusual for players to find many in the course of a week. Despite the Camera Beard being considered as a 'headgear', you were unable to craft two together to get another hat but you were able to craft them together to create another Miscellaneous piece of headgear. After the Camera Beard drop-rate was patched in a subsequent update, it became possible to craft two of them together to make a hat.
• Grenade, Building, Head, and PDA(1) Slot Tokens were once listed in the items_game.txt file and were valid items, but none of them were given blueprints, and as such these items were removed from the game during the Mann-Conomy Update. It was previously possible to craft a Head Slot Token by placing 4 hats in the crafting window due to an oversight, but the blueprint and all instances of the item were finally removed when the Mann-Conomy update was launched (For example, this backpack before and after the update).

Notes

• The event hats and other hats/items of limited availability do not count toward the Rebuild Headgear recipe. These include Bill's Hat, the Ghastly Gibus/Ghastlier Gibus, the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask, the Cheater's Lament, Max's Severed Head, the Alien Swarm Parasite, the Earbuds, Ellis' Cap, the four service medals (Mercenary, Soldier of Fortune, Grizzled Veteran, and Primeval Warrior), the Gentle Manne's Service Medal, the four dueling badges (Bronze Dueling Badge, Silver Dueling Badge, Gold Dueling Badge, Platinum Dueling Badge), the Mann Co. Cap, the Lumbricus Lid, the Wiki Cap, the Bounty Hat, the Treasure Hat, the Hat of Undeniable Wealth And Respect, Stockbroker's Scarf, Foster's Facade, and the promotional items from Poker Night at the Inventory (License to Maim, the Dealer's Visor, and the Dangeresque, Too?).
• Some cases have been reported of players "finding" scrap metal. This is most likely the cause of the player losing connection to Steam after clicking the craft button. This means the items are used in the craft recipe, yet the result of the craft remains uncollected until the player dies in a server: giving the "PLAYERNAME has found: METALTYPE" alert.
• When crafting, if metals or items disappear unexpectedly, a fast method of making them re-appear is to access the main menu and enter the Mann Co. Store.
• Robin Walker confirmed that all items seen in the store (with the exception of Crate Keys, Secret Saxton and Pile o' Gifts) can randomly drop in-game. (This is no longer true as of the Scream Fortress event; the Spine-Chilling Skull and Voodoo Juju are both listed in the store as being unobtainable via random drop. They can, however, be crafted with items available via random drop.)
• All weapons or hats purchased in the Mann Co. Store are uncraftable and untradable; though as of the October 6, 2010 Patch all items marked as "Store Promotion" were made craftable but not tradable. Anything crafted with a Store Promotion item will be itself untradable.
• Items gained via achievements before the Mann-Conomy update were temporarily uncraftable and untradable, but this was changed shortly after so that they could be crafted although they are still untradable.
• If an untradable item is used in the crafting of a hat, weapon or item, then the resulting item will also be untradable.
• Untradable metal, and items made with untradable metal, have reverted to tradable, when the next patch was released due to a glitch. This behavior was observed during the Scream Fortress event with Voodoo Jujus and Spine-Chilling Skulls crafted using untradable Haunted Metal Scrap. Halloween Hats crafted prior to the November 10, 2010 Patch became tradable after the update, but hats crafted after that have reportedly remained untradable, suggesting Valve has fixed the glitch.

External links

• Crafting in the WAR! Update
• Expanded list of blueprints at TF2items.com
• First mention of crafting