The Copper Pickaxe, Copper Shiv, and Copper Sledgehammer are obtained from world recipes, not the Permafrost blueprint tree purchased with points. Find the recipe papers in and around House Camp along the Lost Connection side-quest route. The Large Wooden Chest recipe is along that same path, and none of these recipes is locked away.
Quick answer: Grab four loose “Recipe” pickups near House Camp along the Lost Connection trail. Press F on each to unlock it. Copper Sledgehammer and Copper Pickaxe and Copper Shiv are three of them; the Large Wooden Chest is the fourth.
How the recipe pickups work
Copper tools come from paper recipe objects you pick up, not from spending blueprint points. When you walk up to one, the prompt reads “Recipe / Press F to pick up.” Take it and a banner shows “RECIPE UNLOCKED” with the recipe’s name in large letters below, plus a small key hint. That banner is your confirmation the recipe is now yours.
You can collect the recipes without having Lost Connection active; its markers simply take you right by each location. To start the quest, talk to Anna in the Church at House Camp.
This is an early access build, so a pickup can shift to a different spot in a later version. These four are the recipes covered here, not a complete list of world recipes.
Where each recipe sits
Copper Sledgehammer
Find the partly collapsed two-story house, half buried in snow, a short run from Sean’s porch along the street of wrecked cars. The first Lost Connection tape is inside, on the sink counter in the upstairs bathroom. Continue through the frozen rooms from there, then drop through the damaged floor to reach the lower level.
The recipe is in the kitchen on that lower floor, by the white cupboards and counter where snow has drifted across the floor and a doorway opens to daylight. Pick it up there and the banner reads “RECIPE UNLOCKED / COPPER SLEDGEHAMMER.”
Large Wooden Chest
At Promenade (House Camp), take a short walk from the playground to a worn, two-story white wooden home. Enter on the ground floor. In the snow-drifted room, you’ll find a Bag you can open, with the recipe nearby in that same room. Picking it up displays “RECIPE UNLOCKED / LARGE WOODEN CHEST.”
Copper Pickaxe
Near the playground, look on a rooftop for the small, rusted metal booth containing Connie’s recording; it is not on the Church roof. To reach it, enter the white wooden house on the same block through its small front porch. Climb the snow-covered staircase inside to the top floor, exit onto the roof through the broken wall, and follow the wooden planks to the railed metal catwalk. The booth is on that catwalk.
On the booth floor, find the recipe beside the tape recorder. Its banner says “RECIPE UNLOCKED / COPPER PICKAXE.”
That rooftop sits inside a Cold Zone, with the readout around -33°C. Grab the recipe and move on rather than lingering.
Copper Shiv
From that rooftop, continue toward the concrete ruins outside Gate F. A garage with wrecked cars sits along the way. Go through the garage bay to the room behind it, which has bare walls, a tall metal shelving unit on one side and wooden shelves with a red toolbox on the other. The recipe rests on the metal shelving, and picking it up shows “RECIPE UNLOCKED / COPPER SHIV.” The quest marker for the ruins reads about 35 m from this room, so sweep the room just before that final stop.
Locked military crates on the same route
You pass two locked military crates while collecting the recipes. These hold loot, not recipes, so skipping them costs you no recipe. One sits upstairs in a two-story wooden house across the yard from the half-buried house; the other is on the rooftop catwalk beside the booth. Both show the same prompt, “Military crate / Hold F Unlock,” with a padlock icon and a banner reading “Hold Knife to Unlock / LOCKED.”
A knife in good condition opens them. A worn-out shiv fails with the message “Your tool is too damaged to use!” If you want the loot, bring a fresh blade. A Scrap Shiv costs 5 Scrap and 10 Processed Plastic at the Workbench.
