Smelting and Blasting Raw Ores into Ingots
Furnace and Blast Furnace
Raw ore blocks and clusters feed a furnace or blast furnace to produce ingots. Put Hematite or Limonite in to get Iron, Malachite or Azurite to get Copper, Cassiterite to get Tin, Galena to get Lead, Sphalerite to get Nickel, and Bauxite to get Aluminum. Platinum ore yields Platinum Ingot, and Gold ore yields Gold Ingot. Clusters such as Iron Cluster, Copper Cluster, Tin Cluster, Lead Cluster, Nickel Cluster, Aluminum Cluster, Silver Cluster, Gold Cluster, Platinum Cluster, Osmium Cluster, and Poor Gold Cluster are the intermediate form you smelt.
Blasting is the faster route when you have a blast furnace. Both smelting and blasting recipes exist for these ores, so pick whichever furnace you have on hand.
Nuggets and Storage
Smelted ingots can be broken down into nuggets: Aluminum Nugget, Copper Nugget, Lead Nugget, Nickel Nugget, Platinum Nugget, Silver Nugget, and Tin Nugget. Keep nuggets for fine-grained crafting and use full ingots for tools, blocks, and machine parts. If you smelt Poor Gold you get a smaller yield than full Gold, so process Poor Gold separately and don't mix it into your main gold stack.