Iron is an important element within the world of Skyrim, as it is the foundation of many armor sets. Collecting Iron Ores or Ingots is essential to forge weapons and is a lifeline for any players. Fortunately, within the world of Skyrim, players can obtain the iron ores and ingots directly, or they can smelt the Iron Ores into Ingot bricks. They can also mix the ores with different elements to produce different ingots, allowing flexibility as well.
Best Farming Methods to Acquire Iron Ore in Skyrim
The intended method of the game is to obtain iron by literally mining for it. So, in order to farm the Iron, you need to obtain Iron Ores from the mines. There are several regions in the land of Skyrim where you can quickly acquire the Iron Ore in Skyrim, however, in total, there are in total 668 Iron Ore veins spread across the Skryim.
Halted Stream Camp
The Halted Stream Camp is the best mine to farm ores. It has a total of 16 veins of ores that you can farm in a linear and narrow mine. The further you go in, the more ore you’ll discover.
Fort Fellhammer
It is a little difficult to infiltrate the Fort Fellhammer as it requires the Fellhammer Mine key to enter which can be taken from the Bandit Chief. However, once obtained, you gain access to 10 Iron Ore veins in the camp, which is the perfect place to move on to after exhausting the Halted Stream Camp.
Embershard Mine
Northwest of Helgen, and Southwest of Riverwood, the Embershard Mine may not contain as many resources as the other two, but it is on a location that is extremely convenient to approach from two cities. The Embershard Mine has about 8 iron ore veins you can mine.
Gloombound Mine
Gloombound Mine is located near Wilhelm all the way up to north east. With only 6 iron ore veins this is perhaps the furthest mining camp in the game. This is a good option to mine if you are in Wilhelm and require iron for your quests.
Iron Breaker Mine
This mine is available inside Dawnstar itself. It is a 6 ore vein mine within the city and they are easy to search for in the location. If you want a straight forward simple and quick Iron ore farming this is the prime location.
Blind Cliff Mine
Going all the way to the western border near Markath, the Blind Cliff Cave hosts 6 Iron Ore veins as well, however, one of them requires you to adventure a little bit deeper within the cave making it a rather complicated farming house. However, this is a good mine if you’re stuck in the West.
Best ways to get Iron Ingots in Skyrim
There are two main ways to get the Iron Ingots. You either obtain it from the smiths or smelt the ores yourself.
Smelting ores is easy. Once you’ve mined the ores or obtained them, bring them to a smelter. You can find one near Adrianne Avenicci, for instance. Now, at the smelter, you can convert your ores into usable ingots. Each ore will produce one ingot.
The second method requires obtaining it from Smiths. The simplest way is to buy it from whoever you meet with. However, you could also obtain them for free but the method requires a little risk. In this guide, we will be telling you the locations that have iron ingots stored, and you can steal them.
East Empire Company
Here in this area, the iron ingots are sitting on some shelves. You would need to investigate a little, but there are a total of three shelves that have the Iron Ingots here. One you can find near the shelf that has leather strips, pelts etc. There’s a shelf right behind the pelt shelf, which would have 4 Iron Ingots.
Loop around this shelf and you will find a large quantity of Iron Ingots just ready to be taken away.
Solitude
Another great place to get a lot of iron ingots is Solitude. To be specific, the Blacksmith of Solitude has a lot of iron ingots. Just enter this building, and you’ll discover the iron ingots sitting on this shelf. Then turn around, and you’ll find some neatly placed iron ingots on a barrel as well. You might find some iron ores here on the side as well.
After that, enter the smith’s living quarters, and you’ll find some ingots placed on his desk. And that’s about how much you can steal from this blacksmith.
Riften Blacksmith
Spawn in Mistveil Keep and head to Riften Blacksmith’s location in his shop “The Scorched Hammer”. The blacksmith stored all of his iron ingots in his basement so head directly there and right in front of you would be a table full of Iron Ingots.
Fort Dawnguard
It is a difficult place to infiltrate and there’s a chance that you may face resistance. However there is no need to worry about it if you have already cleared the fort. This fort has Iron Ingots on every Blacksmithing corner so you can take as much as your heart contends.
