Improve

Improve (or imp for short) is done on an item to increase its quality.

To improve the item, right-click it, click "Examine", read what item is needed to improve it, activate the necessary item, and right-click the first item again to attempt to improve it.

Containers and the inventory usually show an extra imp-column to show you the tool you need to improve the items. This can be enabled or disabled by right-clicking the name header, and select 'toggle imp column'

Notes

• Some items require certain conditions to be improved. For example, smithing items need to be glowing hot to improve. Also, most items need to be at 0 damage (repaired) to be improved, except wooden fences, wooden gates, and stone walls.
• Some items cannot be improved and will reflect that when the examine command gives no information for improvement: newbie starter kit tools, most building materials (dirt, planks, etc), yoyo, raw materials (but can be combined with higher quality material to improve (at the expense of the higher quality material), unrepairable items]], etc.
• Unfinished items can't be improved until finished. The improve keybind won't work on them, use finish instead.

See also

• Repairing