Metal

A metal is a lustrous, conductive, and generally strong and workable material. There currently exist two different metals within Minecraft:

There also exists one alloy:



Properties of metals
Metals in Minecraft all share the following properties:


 * They can exist in nugget, ingot and full block forms.
 * They have corresponding tool and armor sets.
 * Their tool and armor sets can be processed by a furnace or blast furnace in order to receive a nugget of the respective metal back.
 * Their ores are the only ores which drop themselves as a block without the use of the Silk Touch enchantment, requiring these ores to be smelted via furnace or blast furnace to receive the ingot.
 * They are capable of making pressure plates of varying weightedness.
 * They, in block form, can power beacons.

Iron has the following additional properties:
 * Can be used to create iron doors and iron trapdoors
 * Can be used to create iron bars
 * Has another corresponding armor set, the chain armor
 * Used for many heavy utility blocks such as the anvil, cauldron and hopper

Gold has the following additional properties:
 * Can be used to upgrade apples, carrots and melon slices into golden apples, golden carrots and glistering melon slices.

Alloys have the following distinct properties from pure metals:
 * They exist in block and ingot form, but not in nugget form.
 * They do not have direct ores and must be combined from other metals.

Metallic elements
Aside from gold and iron, there exist numerous elements which also correspond to real-life metals. However, these do not have the same uses that gold and iron metals have in-game.

Metal as a material type
Certain blocks are classified as metals as opposed to rock, requiring a pickaxe to be mined. However, the blocks placed in this category are not necessarily made of a metal in themselves; for example, blocks of diamond, blocks of emerald, blocks of redstone and lapis lazuli blocks are all listed under this category despite not being made of a metal.