If you’ve spent any time building bases or upgrading tools in Palworld, you’ve probably hit a wall where you can’t progress without a steady supply of this small, unassuming metal part. We’ve spent dozens of playtesting runs refining the fastest, most consistent methods to answer how to get nails in Palworld, no matter if you’re 5 hours into your first save or wrapping up endgame production lines. Most new players waste hours looting random chests for nails when there are far more reliable, repeatable ways to stock up, and we’re breaking all of them down below.
Core Methods to Get Nails in Palworld for Every Progression Stage
You don’t need to beat any boss or unlock super rare tech to get nails, but your options get way more convenient as you level up. We’ve split methods up by progression so you don’t waste time trying to build a production line when you’re still using stone tools. For context, each nail takes 1 ingot to craft, and you’ll need hundreds of them for things like reinforced chests, metal tools, high-tier workbenches, and base defense turrets once you hit level 15.
- Early game (levels 1-15): Loot and limited crafting from scattered workbenches
- Mid game (levels 15-30): Manual crafting and targeted looting runs
- Late game (levels 30+): Fully automated mass production with Pals
Don’t sleep on how many nails you can pick up in your first few hours, even if you don’t have your own forge yet. We’ve found that new players who ignore early loot runs end up waiting 2-3 hours longer to build their first proper metal workbench than players who make a quick detour to key locations.
Fastest Early-Game Loot Spots for Free Nails
If you haven’t unlocked the primitive forge yet, you can get dozens of nails in under an hour by hitting specific high-loot areas across the map. The best spot we’ve found is the abandoned miner’s camps west of the starting plateau, right on the edge of the first desert biome. These camps have multiple unlocked chests, loose supply crates, and even broken workbenches that drop 2-5 nails each when you destroy them.
You’ll also find nails in the small villages scattered around the starting zone, usually in the toolboxes sitting outside resident homes. Just make sure you don’t attack any villagers while you’re looting, or you’ll get swarmed by their guard Pals that are usually 5-10 levels higher than most early-game players. You can get around 40-60 nails from a single run of 3-4 miner camps, which is more than enough to build your first forge and start crafting your own supply.
One trick most players miss: if you find a random primitive forge in an abandoned camp, you can use it to craft nails on the spot even if you haven’t unlocked the recipe for yourself yet. Just bring extra ingots you pick up from looting ore veins nearby, and you can walk away with double the nails you would have found just looting chests. If you’re feeling bold, you can also check the small military outposts near the volcanic biome for nails, but those have higher level guard Pals that will attack on sight. We only recommend that if you have a team of level 15+ Pals, but the chests there drop 10-15 nails each, so it’s a great way to stock up fast if you’re prepared.
How to Craft Nails Manually and Scale Production
Once you hit level 10, you’ll unlock the primitive forge recipe, and you can start crafting nails on demand whenever you want. To build a primitive forge, you’ll need 20 wood, 10 stone, and 3 flame organs, which you can get from killing or capturing Foxparks near the starting zone. Once it’s placed, just interact with it, select the nail recipe, and you’ll get 1 nail for every 1 iron ingot you put in.
Iron ingots are made by putting 2 iron ore into the same primitive forge, so you’ll want to set up a small mining outpost near a dense iron ore vein as soon as possible. We recommend building your first dedicated forge area right next to the iron ore veins south of the starting plateau, since there are 8-10 ore nodes clustered within a 20-foot radius, and very few aggressive Pals spawn in the area.
If you don’t want to mine ore yourself, you can assign Pals with the mining work suitability to your base, and they’ll gather ore for you automatically. Just make sure you have enough storage chests nearby, or they’ll stop mining once their inventory is full. We’ve found that having 2 level 10+ Tombats or Digtoises assigned to mining will give you enough ore to make 50+ nails every 10 minutes, even without any extra production upgrades. You can also unlock the higher-tier improved forge at level 30, which cuts nail crafting time in half and uses 10% less fuel to run. If you’re running a large base with 20+ Pals, upgrading to improved forges will let you produce over 200 nails per hour with minimal effort, so it’s worth prioritizing that recipe as soon as you hit the required level. Just make sure you have enough coal to power the improved forges, since they use coal instead of wood or flame organs for fuel. You can find coal veins in the northern mountain biomes, or get it as a drop from fire-type Pals higher level than 25.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Farming Nails
After testing every nail farming method across 6 different playthroughs, we’ve seen a lot of players make the same avoidable mistakes that waste hours of their time. The first is using ingots for other craftables before you build up a nail stockpile. It’s tempting to make metal swords or armor first, but you won’t be able to upgrade your base to hold more Pals or better workbenches without nails, so prioritize them for your first 100 ingots.
Another mistake is not building multiple forges once you hit mid-game. A single primitive forge can only make 1 nail every 3 seconds, which is way too slow if you need hundreds of nails for turrets and elevated base platforms. We recommend building at least 3 forges by the time you hit level 20, and assigning Pals with the kindling work suitability to operate them 24/7 so you don’t have to stand there crafting nails manually.
The last big mistake we see is ignoring nail drops from defeated enemy Pals and raiders. Higher-level human raiders that attack your base often carry 5-10 nails each in their inventory, and you can pick them up for free after you fend off the raid. If you have a base defense set up, you can easily get 20-30 extra nails per hour without doing any extra work just by collecting drops after raids. Don’t throw away any nails you get from these drops, even if you already have a stockpile – they add up way faster than you think, especially when you’re scaling your base for endgame content.
At the end of the day, building a steady supply of this common crafting resource doesn’t have to be a grind, no matter what stage of the game you’re in. Whether you’re looting abandoned camps in your first few hours or running automated production lines for endgame builds, the methods we’ve laid out will help you answer how to get nails in Palworld without wasting time on inconsistent, low-yield strategies. Keep these tips in mind next time you log in, and you’ll never find yourself stuck waiting for nails to finish a base upgrade ever again.