40d:Melt item

You can melt items at a smelter to recover some or all of the metal they are made of.

Choosing What to Melt

You can designate metal items for melting directly from the Stocks page and the Look interface.

You can also select metal items for melting from any interface that allows you to view the object's description screen. Simply type m to mark the object for melting. To bring up a individual object description screen when the object is:

• On the ground: Type k, scroll to the object, select it from the list, and type Enter.
• In a workshop: Type t, highlight the workshop, select the object from the list, and type Enter.
• Held by a dwarf: Type v, highlight the dwarf, type {k|i}} to show his inventory, select the object from the list, and type Enter.
• Inside another object: Display the container's object description screen, navigate to the specific object you wish to see, and type Enter.
• In the stocks menu: Type z, hit right-direction a few times to select "stocks" and press return. Scroll to the type of object you wish to melt, type Tab to show individual items (You have to have an exact number or this won't work. See Bookkeeper for how to get this.), scroll to the specific object, and type v to view.

Melting the Items

Items designated to be melted will be left alone until you queue a "Melt a metal object" job at a Smelter or its magma variant. Melting down an object requires the Furnace Operator labour.

Yield

Melting an item is not guaranteed to return all of the metal that went into it. In the worst case, the object is simply destroyed.