Graveyard Keeper 2 polished bronze

Polished Bronze is where most players lose time: the recipe sits on the Woodworking Workbench, not on an anvil, and the item is both a crafting ingredient and a build cost for eight different buildings — the Writing Desk and the Formulation Bench among them.

How to make Polished Bronze

Recipe Station Ingredients Ticks Unlocked by
Polished Bronze Woodworking Workbench IWoodworking Workbench II Bronze Detail ×2 Sand ×2 Melted Fat ×1 6 Bronze Polishing

Where the ingredients come from

Ingredient Needed Made at
Bronze Detail ×2 Wooden Anvil · Iron Anvil · Steel Anvil 1 Bronze Ingot → 6, 5 ticks
Sand ×2 Sand Digger Stand yields 1, 8 ticks
Melted Fat ×1 Distillation Cube 1 Fat + 2 Clay Plate + 20 Fuel → 4, 6 ticks3 Seed oil + 2 Clay Plate + 20 Fuel → 3, 8 ticks

“Made at” names the station that can make each ingredient, and the line under it is the actual recipe (inputs → yield, ticks); “no producing row” means the recipe, alchemy mix and crop tables all come up empty — you gather, hunt, buy or loot it instead.

Fuel is not something you carry: nothing in the game hands you a stack of it — you put Firewood into a Firewood shed and the shed supplies the workbenches in its zone (the shed window carries that instruction line).

What it is used for

Recipe Needs Station Output
Copper Trinkets Polished Bronze ×2 Wooden Anvil · Iron Anvil · Steel Anvil Copper Trinkets ×1
Bronze tools Polished Bronze ×1 Wooden Anvil · Iron Anvil · Steel Anvil Bronze tools ×1
Starter Alchemist's Kit Polished Bronze ×1 Jewelry Table Starter Alchemist's Kit ×1
Amateur Rod Polished Bronze ×2 Woodworking Workbench I · Woodworking Workbench II Amateur Rod ×1

Used as a build cost

Building Needs Rest of the cost
Woodworking Workbench II Polished Bronze ×2 Oiled Plank ×4
Furnace II Polished Bronze ×2 Polished Stone ×6 Brick ×16
Weaving Loom Polished Bronze ×2 Wooden Plank ×4 Bronze Nails ×8
Sewing Table Polished Bronze ×2 Wooden Plank ×6 Advanced Detail ×4
Monument II Polished Bronze ×3 Bronze Ingot ×4 Polished Stone ×5
Writing Desk Polished Bronze ×1 Wooden Plank ×4 Bronze Nails ×6
Formulation Bench Polished Bronze ×1 Wooden Plank ×4 Bronze Detail ×5
Embalming Table I Polished Bronze ×1 Oiled Plank ×4 Glass ×4

8 buildings spend Polished Bronze as a build cost — the half of its use no recipe list shows.

Woodworking Workbench I 1

Output Ingredients Ticks Inspiration lv Needs Tech Unlocked by
Polished Bronze ×2 Bronze Detail ×2 Sand ×2 Melted Fat ×1 6 5 Tool Rack R 3 Bronze Polishing

“Inspiration lv” is the level this station’s own inspiration track has to reach — below it the recipe is not offered. “Needs” is the extension that has to stand next to the station before the recipe appears.

Common questions

How do you make polished bronze?
At Woodworking Workbench I or II: 2× Bronze Detail + 2× Sand + 1× Melted Fat, 6 ticks, no fuel. Every anvil (Wooden, Iron, Steel) makes Bronze Detail — that is the swap players get wrong.
Where does each ingredient come from?
Bronze Detail: 1× Bronze Ingot at any anvil, with the Hardening Bucket standing beside that anvil — the bucket is the extension the anvil's bronze recipes need, so an anvil on its own will not offer them. Sand: the Sand Digger Stand zombie job. Melted Fat: Distillation Cube from Fat or Seed oil.
Does polished bronze need research?
The recipe unlocks with the Bronze Polishing research (30 red tech points). What actually gates the first batch is the workbench tier: Woodworking Workbench II costs 2× Polished Bronze to build, so the first batch has to come out of Workbench I.
Is polished bronze the same as bronze ingot?
No, they are three separate items in a chain: Bronze Ingot is smelted (3× Copper Nugget + 1× Tin, or 3× Bronze Scrap), an anvil turns an ingot into Bronze Detail once the Hardening Bucket stands beside it, and the woodworking bench turns detail + sand + fat into Polished Bronze.

Items: 1 Recipes: 5 Covers: 1.004.2