Scrap Mechanic Wood Guide: Logs, Scrap Wood and Blocks

Trees to blocks, in four steps

Wood is the first resource a new run has too little of and the last one an established base ever worries about. The chain is short:

1. Break a tree. It falls into logs you can carry or drag.
2. Feed a log to a Refinebot. It comes back as Scrap Wood Blocks.
3. Craft upward: 10 Scrap Wood Blocks make 10 Wood Block Level 1 in 5 seconds at the Craftbot.
4. Keep going: 10 Wood Block Level 1 and 1 Metal Block Level 2 make 10 Wood Block Level 2, in 5 seconds. Then 10 Wood Block Level 2 and 1 Metal Block Level 3 make 10 Wood Block Level 3, in 10 seconds.

The interesting part is step four. The wood tiers are gated on metal, not on wood. Wood Block Level 3 costs you one Metal Block Level 3 for every ten blocks, and Metal Block Level 3 is the most expensive material in the crafting tree. If your Level 3 wood has stalled, the problem is the metal ladder, not the forest.

There is one shortcut. The Mining Hub trader sells 1 Wood Block Level 3 for 1,000 Wonk Stack, which is cheap compared to what the crafted version costs in metal.

Big logs are worth more than small ones

Not every log is the same. Larger sections of tree refine into noticeably more Scrap Wood Blocks than the small ones do, so it pays to break big trees and haul the heavy pieces rather than clearing saplings.

That also means transport matters more than tool choice. A flatbed with a driver’s seat and a couple of logs strapped down will out-produce an hour of chopping on foot, because the bottleneck is moving wood to the Refinebot rather than cutting it.

Fire turns wood into something else entirely

A log killed by fire does not give wood. It gives Ember, which is what the metal ladder runs on. Burnt trees standing in the world work the same way when you break them.

That is a choice, not a bug. If you already have plenty of wood and no Ember, burning a log is the correct move. If you need wood, keep fire away from your stack, because a burning pile of logs turns into Ember whether you wanted that or not.

What the loot tables add

Wood shows up in containers, though never in the quantities a tree gives you:

• Scrap Wood Blocks. Ruin chest and restocking ruin chest: one roll each at 3.9%, for a flat 12 blocks.
• Wood Block Level 1. Ruin chests at 3.9% for 12 blocks. Epic loot crates: four rolls between 0.6% and 1.5%, for 10 to 60. Legendary crates: five rolls between 0.7% and 1.1%, for 50 to 60. Warehouse file cabinets and lockers at 1.3% per roll, for 10 to 20.
• Wood Block Level 2 and Level 3. Epic crates at 0.6% to 1.5% and legendary crates at 0.6% to 1.1%, for 50 to 60 blocks on a legendary hit.

Fifty to sixty Level 3 blocks out of a legendary crate is worth more than the crate’s odds suggest, because crafting the same amount would cost five or six Metal Block Level 3. That is the one case where crate hunting genuinely beats the workshop.

Where the wood actually goes

Scrap Wood Blocks are the currency of the early game:

• Cardboard Block: 5 Scrap Wood Blocks make 20 Cardboard Blocks. That is the feed for a Glowbug pen.
• Glue: 20 Scrap Wood Blocks and 2 Beeswax.
• Soil Bag: 100 Scrap Wood Blocks, 1 Soil Bag and 1 Water make 2 Soil Bags.
• Ember: 50 Scrap Wood Blocks and 1 Ember make 5 Ember.
• Scrap Chest: 60 Scrap Wood Blocks and 10 Scrap Metal Blocks.

Level 1 wood is what you build with:

• Wheel: 20 Wood Block Level 1, 5 Metal Block Level 1, 3 Beeswax.
• Monster Wheel Big: 80 Wood Block Level 1, 30 Metal Block Level 2, 12 Beeswax.
• Respawn Bed: 50 Wood Block Level 1, 20 Cotton, 10 Paint Ammo.
• Wooden Crate: 5 Wood Block Level 1.

The two recipes that drain a wood chest

The Ember multiplier takes 50 Scrap Wood Blocks a pass, and a Soil Bag doubling takes 100. Both are worth running constantly, and between them they will empty a chest you thought was full. Feed a finished build into the crafting calculator before you start cutting and it expands every tier down to Scrap Wood Blocks, which saves working the doubling out by hand.

Cardboard runs the other way. Five blocks in, twenty out, and those twenty feed a Glowbug pen that produces Glow indefinitely. That is the best return on Scrap Wood in the game, and it is cheap enough to set up in the first hour.