A pile of wood
Wood (previously known as Log) is a type of block first seen in Minecraft Creative mode 0.0.14a. They have a skin resembling bark on the four side faces, and a crosscut face on top and bottom. Wood is greatly abundant in naturally-generated maps, as it is used as the foundation for Trees. Wood can be mined by hand, but using an Axe is faster. Wood is also flammable.
Wood blocks are available for use in Creative mode. They are often used to make plants, trees and wooden cabins. In Survival mode, wood blocks drop 3 - 5 Wooden Planks when mined. In Indev, Infdev, Alpha, and Beta, mining a wood block will drop a wood block instead. This allows the use of wood as a building material.
Wood's only crafting use is to be made into four Wooden Planks. In addition, wood can be burnt in a Furnace to make Charcoal for those times Coal is not available.
As of the Minecraft Beta 1.2 update on January 13, 2011, there are now three kinds of wood. One is the normal wood, another resembles the wood of silver birch trees, and the third type resembles the normal wood, but it is darker and appears in pine/conifer trees that grow in colder biomes. These trees still produce 4 Wooden Planks when crafted. Wood from different types of trees will not stack in the inventory, but their planks will. Birch trees have slightly duller colored leaves than regular trees, and pine trees have pine needles.
Pencil
Wood can make wooden planks, that can make sticks. Sticks, coal or charcoal are a good combination because with 1 stick and 1 graphite you can make a pencil, that can write in books. Graphite can be made with 1 charcoal or coal. When you write something wrong in the book, don't worry. Just extract 4 latex and make an eraser.
Latex
Latex can be extracted by trees. The tools you need to extract it are an iron tube and a bucket. Both can be made with 3 iron ingots. To extract latex, tuck the iron tube into the tree. The latex will drop in the grass or dirt and you use the bucket to get it. To make an eraser put 4 latex buckets like 4 clay bricks making an brick.
Trivia
- The number of rings on the inside of a tree counts the age of the tree. If one counts the rings of a wood block, the sum is two years.
- From Alpha 1.2 to Beta 1.3, wood would only be destroyed by fire if it had several sides simultaneously burning. If only one side was burning, the fire and wood block would last forever. This was probably a bug but made for nice fireplaces. Netherrack can also be used this way, as it burns forever.
- Birch wood slightly resembles the face of a Ghast.
- It is possible to transform an oak tree into a birch tree, if it has no branches. The top of the tree will be a cross shape made of leaves, and due to the way leaves decay, by placing a wood block on all sides of the cross they will remain intact. After that, break down the treetrunk and swap it with birch wood, then remove the pieces of wood on the top of the tree to create a birch tree. The leaves, though, will remain oak tree leaves.
- Wood is featured in the "Getting Wood" achievement.
Uses of Wood
| Product | Number of wood blocks needed |
Minimal product amount |
Approximate ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stick | 1 | 8 | 800% |
| Plank | 1 | 4 | 400% |
| Torch* | 1 wood, 8 charcoal | 32 | 355.6% |
| Wooden Stair | 3 | 8 | 266.7% |
| Wooden Pressure Plate | 1 | 2 | 200% |
| Wooden Shovel | 1 | 2 | 200% |
| Wooden Sword | 5 | 8 | 160% |
| Bowl | 3 | 4 | 133.3% |
| Wooden Half Step | 3 | 4 | 133.3% |
| Wooden Hoe | 3 | 4 | 133.3% |
| Ladder | 7 | 8 | 114.3% |
| Wooden Axe | 7 | 8 | 114.3% |
| Wooden Pickaxe | 7 | 8 | 114.3% |
| Charcoal* | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| Workbench | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| Boat | 5 | 4 | 80% |
| Door | 3 | 2 | 66.7% |
| Fence | 3 | 2 | 66.7% |
| Sign | 13 | 8 | 61.5% |
| Chest | 2 | 1 | 50% |
* Requires the burning of wood into charcoal in a furnace. Thus, you will need 8 cobblestone and burning material. These values are ignored for the purpose of conversion.
Wood textures
| Icon | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | The original (Oak) texture | |
| 1 | The Pine/Spruce texture | |
| 2 | The Birch texture |
A birch tree next to a regular one