When I first booted up Enshrouded last year, I spent nearly half an hour crawling around the starting meadow clicking every loose stone and twig individually to build my first basic workbench. I had no idea there was a cheap, easy tool that would cut that tedious foraging time by more than 60% until a random co-op teammate dropped one next to my campfire and told me to try it. If you’re still picking up resources one by one, this guide is for you, because we’re breaking down exactly how to make a rake in Enshrouded, what materials you need, and all the secret uses most new players never discover for this underrated basic tool.
What You Need to Make a Rake in Enshrouded
The best part about crafting a rake is that you don’t need any rare materials or unlocked NPCs to put one together, you can make it within the first 10 minutes of spawning into a new world if you know what to look for. The latest stable patch has the recipe requiring three core components, all of which you can find within 100 feet of the starting spawn point: 6 pieces of rough wood, 3 loose stone chunks, and 2 twisted plant fiber.
You don’t need any special tools to gather these materials either. Rough wood drops from cutting small saplings or even punching leafy bushes if you haven’t crafted your first stone axe yet. Loose stone chunks are scattered across almost every grassy area near rocky outcrops, just walk up and click them to add them to your inventory, no mining pick required. Twisted plant fiber drops from harvesting tall yellow grass or dandelion patches, which grow all over the starting meadow.
That means you don’t have to venture anywhere near the dangerous shroud zones to gather these supplies, and you won’t have to fight any enemies to get everything you need. If you’re having trouble finding any of the components, try walking along the edge of the nearby forest line, you’ll usually find all three materials spawned close together there.
Step-by-Step Crafting Process for Your First Rake
Crafting the rake is even easier than gathering the materials, once you have all three components in your inventory. First, open your personal crafting menu, which is bound to the “I” key by default on PC, or the left D-pad button on console. You don’t need to use a workbench for this recipe, the basic hand crafting menu works perfectly.
Once you’re in the crafting menu, navigate to the “Tools” tab, not the weapons, building, or consumables tabs. If you don’t see the tab, you might need to scroll left or right with the arrow buttons at the top of the menu to find it. The rake icon looks like a short wooden handle with four stone tines on the end, and it will be listed near the stone axe, stone pickaxe, and basic hammer recipes.
If you don’t see the rake recipe listed at all, that means you haven’t collected at least one of each required material yet. Enshrouded unlocks new crafting recipes automatically as you pick up their component parts for the first time, so just go grab one more piece of any missing material and the recipe will pop up instantly. Once you see it, just click the craft button, and the rake will be added to your hotbar if you have an empty slot, or to your inventory if your hotbar is full.
Pro tip: Craft two rakes at once when you’re first starting out. They’re so cheap to make, and you won’t have to stop mid-foraging trip to make a new one if your first one breaks after a few hours of use.
Key Uses for Your Enshrouded Rake That Most Players Miss
A lot of new players assume the rake is only good for picking up loose resources, but it has a ton of hidden uses that make it one of the most versatile early game tools in Enshrouded. I’ve tested every possible use over 300+ hours of playtime, and these are the ones that saved me the most time and frustration:
- Pick up 3-5 loose resources (stone, twigs, plant fiber, mushroom scraps, and even loose coal) in a single swing, instead of clicking each one individually. This cuts down foraging time by more than half when you’re clearing a field for base building or gathering supplies for a big crafting project.
- Till soil for early game farming, no need to wait for a hoe until you unlock the Farmer NPC 10+ hours into the game. You can plant basic berry seeds, wheat seeds, and even cotton seeds right in tilled soil with just a rake, as long as you place the tilled patch within 10 feet of a water source like a river or rain catcher.
- Clear small weeds and dead grass from your base area without using your axe, which saves axe durability for chopping down larger trees for building materials. A basic stone axe loses 8 durability per swing when used on weeds, while a rake only loses 2, so it lasts 4x longer for this type of task.
- Knock low-hanging fruit from apple and pear trees without climbing, just stand under the lowest branches and swing once to get 2-3 fruit per tree for fast early game food. This is way faster than picking fruit one by one, and you won’t have to waste stamina climbing up and down tree trunks.
I didn’t know about the farming use for my first 20 hours of playtime, and I wasted so much time running back and forth to wild berry bushes to get food before I figured it out. If you’re planning on building a permanent base, the rake will let you set up a small farm within the first hour of gameplay, so you never have to worry about running out of food again.
Common Rake Crafting Mistakes to Avoid as a New Player
Even though the rake is a simple tool, there are a few common mistakes new players make that waste resources or make the tool far less useful than it should be. I’ve made all of these mistakes myself, so I can tell you exactly what to skip:
Don’t waste metal scraps on an iron rake early on. The basic stone-tipped rake works perfectly for the first 10-15 hours of gameplay, and iron scraps are far better used for crafting stone sword upgrades, armor, or building reinforcements for your base. You won’t need an iron rake until you’re clearing large farming plots or foraging for hundreds of resources at a time in the mid-game.
Don’t forget to assign your rake to a dedicated hotbar slot. I keep mine on slot 4 right next to my axe, pickaxe, and sword, so I can swap to it instantly when I see a pile of loose resources or weeds that need clearing. If you leave it in your inventory, you’ll probably forget you have it and go back to clicking resources one by one.
Never use your rake to fight enemies, even the smallest slimes. It only deals 2 damage per hit, which is barely enough to kill a basic slime in 4 hits, and you’ll break the rake entirely before you take down a wolf or low-level bandit. Save your rake for foraging and farming, and use your sword or axe for combat.
If you’re playing co-op, don’t leave your rake lying on the ground when you log off. Basic tools aren’t bound to your character, so other players on the server can pick them up and use them, and you’ll have to craft a new one when you log back in. Just keep it in your inventory or storage chest when you’re not using it to avoid losing it.
Another small mistake I see a lot: people don’t repair their rakes at workbenches. It only costs 1 wood and 1 stone to repair a fully broken rake, which is cheaper than crafting a new one, so take 10 seconds to repair it the next time you’re at a workbench instead of making a new one from scratch.
Even though it’s one of the cheapest and simplest tools in the game, knowing how to make a rake in Enshrouded is one of the small quality of life upgrades that makes your first few dozen hours of gameplay far less frustrating. You’ll spend less time mindlessly clicking individual resources and more time exploring the shroud, unlocking new NPCs, and building out your dream base. If you’ve been sleeping on crafting a rake in your current playthrough, grab the required materials and make one the next time you spawn in, you won’t regret the 10 seconds it takes to put together.