Crafting

Crafting is the method by which many blocks, tools, and materials are made in Minecraft. In order to craft something, players must move items from their inventory to a crafting grid. A 2×2 crafting grid can be accessed from the player's inventory. A 3×3 grid can be accessed by right-clicking a Crafting Table.

For some items, the arrangement of their ingredients on the crafting grid is unimportant. These are commonly known as shapeless recipes. For example, a Fermented spider eye can have its ingredients placed anywhere within the grid.

On the other hand, many of the more important or useful game objects must have their ingredients placed in the correct relative positions on the crafting grid. Even then, provided the resources are arranged correctly, the item can be made in any way that fits in the grid. For example, a 3×1 recipe, such as bread, can be made using the top, middle, or bottom row of the 3×3 grid, but it cannot be made using the 2×2 grid because it needs to be three items wide. Ingredients in ‘shaped’ recipes can be ‘slid’ up, down, left, or right. They can also be flipped horizontally. For instance, players can make a bow with the strings placed on the right instead of on the left. As of Minecraft, there are recipes which may not be moved or mirrored in this way. These are commonly known as fixed recipes.

Players always have access to the 2×2 crafting grid from their Inventory screen, and this can be used whenever the screen is brought up. Crafting recipes that are at most 2×2 can always be made there. These include wood planks, sticks, and crafting tables. To craft items using a 3×3 grid, create a crafting table, place it in any convenient spot, and right-click it. This brings up a pop-up screen with a 3×3 grid on which the player can assemble any crafting recipe in the game.

MATTIS
In Pocket Edition, crafting is somewhat different and uses the Minecraft Advanced Touch Technology Interface System (MATTIS) crafting system. Although it displays the 2&times;2 and 3&times;3 grids, the items already appear in the correct slots. In the middle of the screen, there is a list that shows items that can be crafted with the items in the player's inventory. Items that can be crafted are prioritized and shown first. If the player has some but not all ingredients to craft an item, those show up after those that can be crafted and are shaded. In each slot, there is a number denoting how many times the player can craft that item with the current materials.

The right side of the screen shows the grid with the items already placed for the selected item. Below the grid is the name of the selected item and a button used to craft, showing the quantity of the item given when crafted. If there isn't a sufficient amount of ingredients to craft an item, the missing ingredients appear shades on the grid. When one taps on an ingredient within the grid, the name of that ingredient appears above the hotbar.

The player has the option to use a crafting table to give him/her many more choices. When the player taps the crafting table, the MATTIS pops up with crafting options. To craft bricks, stone bricks, stone-based slabs, or stone-based stairs, the player needs to build a Stonecutter.

Console crafting system
The Xbox 360 Edition and Playstation 3 Edition use a simplified crafting system. It does not make use of the standard crafting interface, but still has similarities to the PC version's 2×2 and 3×3 crafting grids, making it a cross between the PC grid-based system and the Pocket Edition's MATTIS system. The interface does not require the player to place items in the correct place in a crafting menu, but instead simply displays the ingredients required to craft the selected item and allows the player to craft that item so long as the player has the required crafting ingredients. The crafting table orders all craftable items into seven categories:Tools & Weapons, Food, Armor, Mechanisms, Transportation, and Decoration.

Pressing X or Square opens the 2×2 crafting menu, and the 3×3 crafting menu when using a Crafting Table. The Armor tab is missing in the 2×2 as crafting any armor requires the use of a 3×3 crafting grid.

Item durability
Certain crafted items, like weapons, tools, and armor, have an item durability. Such items have a limited number of uses, after which they will break. Items made of harder materials such as iron or diamond will last longer, while those made of softer materials such as wood or gold will wear out more quickly. A small damage bar below each item shows roughly how much longer it will last before breaking. (Pressing + will make exact durabilities appear in the player's inventory tooltips.) Partially worn-out items can be repaired. The item repair process works by combining two damaged items to create a less-damaged one, and usually gives a small durability bonus compared to simply using items until they break. To fix diamond tools or armor pieces, use a diamond in an anvil, for iron, use iron ingots, for gold, use gold ingots, etc. This not known by many people, but chain mail armor can be repaired in an anvil as well. To do this, you must use iron ingots, or another piece of chain mail armor.

A use counts only if a player completely breaks apart one block or hits a mob. If a block is only partially broken, this does not count as a use.


 * three uses
 * Hooking a mob with your fishing rod.
 * two uses
 * Using a shovel, pickaxe, or axe on any mob.
 * Using a sword to break a block.
 * Reeling in a fishing rod hooked to a block.
 * Using flint and steel to light or hit a mob.
 * one use
 * Using a shovel, pickaxe, or axe to break a block
 * Successfully catching a fish.
 * zero uses
 * Using a hoe on any mob.
 * Using a hoe to break blocks.

Proper use of tools will maximize their durability. Assuming a player uses a tool appropriately, the following list shows the maximum durability for tools of each material type:


 * Wood - 60 uses
 * Stone - 132 uses
 * Iron - 251 uses
 * Gold - 33 uses
 * Diamond - 1,562 uses

Note: that even though gold tools have very low durability, they are the fastest among all the tools with no enchantments. However even with gold tools high efficiency, gold swords only have the same attack strength as wood swords. Also, gold may have the lowest durability, but it will give the best enchantments.

The amount of protection given by a piece of armor depends only on the material it is made of, and is not affected by the armor's remaining durability.

See also: Tools and Item durability.

Complete recipe list
To save space, some recipes are animated (requires JavaScript). Shapeless recipes are marked with a pair of intertwined arrows on the crafting table graphic.