Hardened Steel Conan Exiles Guide: Crafting & Black Ice Farming

Hardened steel is the tier-4 workhorse metal of Conan Exiles — the step between plain steel and star metal, and the material for the best tools and epic equipment you can craft before the meteorite endgame. The recipe is a two-material chain: 1 Steel Bar + 1 Black Ice → 1 Hardened Steel Bar in any furnace. That makes black ice the gating resource, which means a trip to the Frozen Slopes and the Temple of Frost. This guide covers the full crafting chain (iron → steel → hardened steel), the black ice farming routes, and the recipes that consume your bars.

Here's what you'll learn:

• The exact crafting chain from ironstone to hardened steel
• How steelfire fits in (tar + brimstone), and why you need the Firebowl Cauldron
• The black ice farming routes on the Exiled Lands and Siptah
• What hardened steel actually builds, and where to loot it for free

The Crafting Chain: From Ironstone to Hardened Steel

Hardened steel sits at the end of a four-step chain, and each step has its own station and ingredients:

1. Iron Bar — 2 Ironstone → 1 Iron Bar in a furnace-family station (Charcoal Kiln, Furnace, Improved Furnace, etc.).
2. Steelfire — 1 Tar + 1 Brimstone → 1 Steelfire in a Firebowl Cauldron (10 seconds). This is the catalyst that "hardens iron into steel."
3. Steel Bar — Iron + Steelfire in a furnace: the standard recipe consumes 3 Iron Bars + 1 Steelfire → 1 Steel Bar.
4. Hardened Steel Bar — 1 Steel Bar + 1 Black Ice → 1 Hardened Steel Bar in a furnace (15 seconds, 12 XP).

The lore behind steelfire is one of the game's best item stories, and the Steelfire wiki page tells it: a Khorajan smith's leaking roof tar dripped into his bloomery and tainted the brimstone he used as a catalyst — and the resulting metal was "hardened beyond any metal that he had worked with before." The recipe is exactly that accident: tar + brimstone.

The bottleneck in practice is almost never the furnace work — it's black ice, which only exists in the frozen north (or near Siptah's vaults). Plan your hardened steel production around black ice runs, not smelting time.

Black Ice: Where to Farm It

Black ice is mined from glowing ice crystals and it's exclusively a cold-climate resource:

• The Frozen Slopes / Temple of Frost field — the main farming ground: mine the black ice crystals between the obelisk on the Frozen Slopes and the Temple of Frost, plus the many nodes inside the temple itself. These nodes drop black ice and regular ice together.
• Siptah — black ice can be found near every Elder Vault on the Isle of Siptah, which is convenient if you're already farming vaults.

The official Black Ice wiki page confirms the location and adds an important detail for armor crafters: crafting black ice equipment requires the Frost Smithing knowledge, learned by touching the Lorestone behind Hrungnir of the Frost's throne in the Temple of Frost — and those pieces can only be crafted at the Frost Temple Smithy in the Forge of Ymir. Frost Smithing is separate from the metal bar recipe, which needs no knowledge unlock.

The Best Black Ice Farming Route

The community's standard loop, verified across map guides and video tutorials:

1. Teleport to the Temple of Frost obelisk (grid D/13) or the Frozen Slopes obelisk — both put you in the node field. See our map guide for the obelisk network.
2. Run the ridge between the Frozen Slopes obelisk and the Temple of Frost, mining every crystal cluster. The nodes are dense along that line — it's the highest black-ice-per-minute route in the game.
3. Clear the temple interior — the Frost Giants' temple has many nodes inside, but the giant spawns make it slower; farm it only when the outdoor ridge is picked clean.
4. Loot the Frost Temple Smithy chests if you're there anyway — they occasionally hold black ice gear and materials.
5. Siptah option: if you're vault-farming on the island, grab black ice from vault-adjacent nodes on the same trip instead of making a separate north run.

Since black ice nodes respawn on the standard resource timer, the ridge is farmable on a loop: teleport out, run the ridge, teleport home, repeat.

What Hardened Steel Builds

Hardened Steel Bars feed the best pre-star-metal equipment and the highest-tier tools. The confirmed recipe uses (from the Hardened Steel Bar wiki page):

• The Hardened Steel Pick — the tier-4 pick you need to mine star metal (see our star metal guide).
• Epic weapons and armor — hardened steel is the base material for many epic-tier (T4) weapons and armor pieces.
• Top-tier crafting benches — Campaign and Garrison Blacksmith's Benches each require 100 Hardened Steel Bars alongside Hardened Brick, Insulated Wood and Steel Reinforcement.
• Advanced building — hardened steel appears in reinforced building pieces and siege equipment.

If you'd rather skip part of the crafting, hardened steel bars are also lootable:

• Scorpion Den (Abandoned Silver Mine) — large chests on the cavern walls hold 18 bars, and legendary chests in the same dungeon hold 15.
• The big alligator boss at grid 4G — drops 5 bars.
• The 3-skull boss in The Unnamed City (grid 6D) — drops 6 bars.

FAQ

How do I make hardened steel in Conan Exiles? Smelt 1 Steel Bar + 1 Black Ice in any furnace-family station to get 1 Hardened Steel Bar (15 seconds). Steel bars come from iron bars + steelfire, so the full chain is: ironstone → iron bar → steel bar (3 iron bars + 1 steelfire) → hardened steel bar.

Where do I get black ice? Mine the ice crystals between the Frozen Slopes obelisk and the Temple of Frost, plus nodes inside the temple itself. On the Isle of Siptah, black ice spawns near every Elder Vault. You'll need cold protection for the northern routes.

What is steelfire and how do I make it? Steelfire is the catalyst that converts iron into steel: 1 Tar + 1 Brimstone → 1 Steelfire, crafted in a Firebowl Cauldron (10 seconds). It's the same recipe the game's lore describes — tar tainting brimstone in a smith's bloomery.

What can I craft with hardened steel bars? The Hardened Steel Pick (needed for star metal), epic-tier weapons and armor, top-tier crafting benches (Campaign/Garrison Blacksmith's Bench, 100 bars each), and advanced building pieces.

Where can I loot hardened steel bars instead of crafting them? The Scorpion Den (18 bars in wall chests + 15 in legendary chests), the alligator boss at grid 4G (5 bars), and the 3-skull boss in the Unnamed City at grid 6D (6 bars). All are high-level dungeon content — craft instead if you're low level.

Related Guides

• Conan Exiles Star Metal Guide: Locations & How to Mine
• Conan Exiles Brimstone Locations Guide: Best Spots
• Conan Exiles Armor Guide: Best Sets & How Armor Works
• Conan Exiles Resource Locations Guide: Iron, Oil, Glass & More
• Conan Exiles Map 2026: Exiled Lands & Siptah Changes

Official resources: Steam store page · Official wiki — Hardened Steel Bar · Official wiki — Black Ice · Official wiki — Steelfire · Official wiki — Iron Bar

Last Updated: August 13, 2026