Mending skill, need help

[K3V038]

Does anyone have any good tips on how to level up mending faster? I have already read every sewing primer that spawned in my run, and fixed my clothes and gear a couple times, and im still at level 3... 

[Leeanda]

It is a very slow one to get up...

Maybe get a second lot of clothes as spare and fix them up too..   or go and stand in blizzards so your gear needs fixing more often... And even fixing up bedrolls laying around... 

Otherwise it's a bit of a waiting game I'm afraid...  Unless you want to get mauled a lot ..

[ThePancakeLady]

Not sure if it still works or not (been a while since I bothered) but some of us used to "speed level" mending by snaring a ton of bunnies (or taking them however you prefer), then crafting the Rabbitskin Mitts and Hat- and repairing them after they took *any* damage, or harvesting them and crafting them again. It does require curing a ton of rabbit pelts and guts, but bunnies are far less limited of a resource than cloth is, and you get meat as an extra.

Still takes a while, Mending Skill Lvl 5 takes forever, no matter what.

40 minutes ago, Leeanda said:

...or go and stand in blizzards so your gear needs fixing more often.

And yeah, this ^^^. Intentionally go out into blizzards to increase decay on your clothing faster so it needs repaired more- but you will go through a ton of cloth, cured leather, animal skins (if you are wearing animal skin gear), sewing kits, fishing tackle, etc. Crafting and using fishing tackle seems to be better than burning through sewing kits, with the amount of scrap metal you can find or harvest and guts being a renewable resource, while sewing kits are finite.

[ManicManiac]

As @Leeanda and @ThePancakeLady mentioned, my favorite way to speed up progression is by tanking blizzards.

However, the key really is to just do more "wasteful" mending.  Specifically I mean, you can mend just as soon as the condition dips below 100%.

If you wanted to just level up the skill... you can find an outdoor firebox somewhere in Pleasant Valley, stockpile sticks and coal, gather your supply of cloth and leather, start that fire to stand there to tank blizzards, and continuously mend to your hears content.

(Note: the outdoor firebox is already windproof - a firebox mind you, NOT a campfire... but rather something like a firepit/grill, or burn barrel, etc.)

Edited September 1 by ManicManiac

[Pencil]

This one was a tedious one. What I did was go to Coastal Highway, pick up all the clothing items I could find, harvest a ton of curtains, and sit in the truck behind Quonset Garage repairing clothes (with fishing tackles to save sewing kits). I also crafted a few head wraps since those decay very quickly (1 or 2% a day). By the time I repaired all the clothing items I had, the ones I repaired first had already lost a percentage of condition, so I cycled back through them. 

It takes a while but you can knock it all out in one go in a place like Coastal Highway with tons of cloth. It might take several in-game days of non-stop repairing though.