Pickaxe

Pickaxes are one of the most commonly used tools in the game, being required to mine ores of any type. Different qualities of pickaxes are required to mine certain blocks:
 * Wood or better can mine stone, cobblestone, coal, stairs, furnaces and netherrack.
 * Stone or better can mine iron and Lapis Lazuli.
 * Iron or better can mine gold, diamond and redstone.
 * Diamond can mine obsidian.
 * Stone (or better) pickaxes can mine netherrack in one hit.

Pickaxes are created with 2 sticks and 3 units of a tool material:

The following table summarizes the speed at which different quality pickaxes perform. Values marked with (*) indicate that although the block can be destroyed with said quality pickaxe, it will yield no resource.

Also note that pickaxes are the only technically required wood tools in the game. This is because they can mine stone; a much better tool building material. Therefore, you really only ever need to have 1 wood pickaxe.

Since the Beta 1.2 update, tools have increased durability and gold tools destroy blocks faster.