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Pickaxes are one of the most commonly used tools in the game, being required to mine all ores and many other types of block. Different qualities of pickaxe are required to successfully harvest certain ores and blocks. For example, while coal ore can be mined with any pickaxe, gold ore must be mined with an iron pickaxe or better, or else the player will harvest no ore. Better pickaxes also mine many materials faster (see the Speed and Durability table below).

Uses

A pickaxe is used for obtaining "stone" resources. Some of these resources are:

  • Stone
  • Cobblestone
  • Coal blocks (resource)1
  • Gold blocks (resource)1
  • Diamond blocks (resource)1
  • Redstone blocks (resource)1
  • Iron blocks (resource)1
  • Gold blocks (solid)2
  • Diamond blocks (solid)2
  • Iron blocks (solid)2
  • Glowstone

A pickaxe is only required to actually be able to pick up these blocks or the things that they drop after they have been mined. You can break all of these blocks by hand, but you will not be able to pick up the block or the drop. The only reason for the different kinds of pickaxes is so that you have to have a certain pickaxe in order to obtain things like diamonds. This means that if you have a wooden pickaxe and you mine a diamond block, you will not be able to pick up the diamonds that would come out of the block had you used a stone, iron or diamond pick.

Footnotes

  • 1= This block is the ore block, not the solid block made with ingots
  • 2= This block is the solid block which can only be obtained through crafting a number of ingots together. This is NOT referring to the ore block.

Crafting

Pickaxes are crafted using 2 sticks and 3 units of a tool material:

Ingredients Input » Output Description
Sticks +
Wooden Planks or
Cobblestone or
Iron Ingots or
Gold Ingots or
Diamond Gems
Template:Grid/Crafting Table Required to mine stone-related blocks and ore.

Speed and Durability

The following table shows the time it takes to break each type of block. Values marked with an asterisk and a red background indicate that it cannot be harvested by that quality of tool. (Note that some blocks, like Ice, don't drop anything even when they are "harvested.") If there is no tool that helps speed up mining the block, the row will have a grey background.

Pickaxes Nothing Wood Stone Iron Diamond Gold
Durability 60 132 251 1562 33
Obsidian 50 secs* 50 secs* 50 secs* 50 secs* 15 secs 50 secs*
Iron Door 25 secs* 7.5 secs 7.5 secs 7.5 secs 7.5 secs 7.5 secs
Diamond Block 25 secs* 25 secs* 25 secs* 1.25 secs 0.95 secs 25 secs*
Iron Block 25 secs* 25 secs* 25 secs* 1.25 secs 0.95 secs 25 secs*
Monster Spawner 25 secs* 7.5 secs 7.5 secs 7.5 secs 7.5 secs 7.5 secs
Dispenser 17.5 secs* 5.25 secs 5.25 secs 5.25 secs 5.25 secs 5.25 secs
Furnace 17.5 secs* 5.25 secs 5.25 secs 5.25 secs 5.25 secs 5.25 secs
Coal Ore 15 secs* 2.25 secs 1.15 secs 0.75 secs 0.6 secs 0.4 secs
Diamond Ore 15 secs* 15 secs* 15 secs* 0.75 secs 0.6 secs 15 secs*
Gold Ore 15 secs* 15 secs* 15 secs* 0.75 secs 0.6 secs 15 secs*
Iron Ore 15 secs* 15 secs* 1.15 secs 0.75 secs 0.6 secs 15 secs*
Lapis Lazuli Ore 15 secs* 15 secs* 1.15 secs 0.75 secs 0.6 secs 15 secs*
Redstone Ore 15 secs* 15 secs* 15 secs* 4.5 secs 4.5 secs 15 secs*
Gold Block 15 secs* 15 secs* 15 secs* 0.75 secs 0.6 secs 15 secs*
Lapis Lazuli Block 15 secs* 15 secs* 1.15 secs 0.75 secs 0.6 secs 15 secs*
Brick 10 secs* 3 secs 3 secs 3 secs 3 secs 3 secs
Cobblestone 10 secs* 1.5 secs 0.75 secs 0.5 secs 0.4 secs 0.25 secs
Moss Stone 10 secs* 1.5 secs 0.75 secs 0.5 secs 0.4 secs 0.25 secs
Slab 10 secs* 1.5 secs 0.75 secs 0.5 secs 0.4 secs 0.25 secs
Stone Stairs 10 secs* 3 secs 3 secs 3 secs 3 secs 3 secs
Stone 7.5 secs* 1.15 secs 0.6 secs 0.4 secs 0.3 secs 0.2 secs
Sandstone 4 secs* 0.6 secs 0.3 secs 0.2 secs 0.15 secs 0.1 secs
Ice 1 secs* 0.4 secs 0.2 secs 0.15 secs 0.1 secs 0.1 secs
Pressure Plate 2.5 secs* 0.75 secs 0.75 secs 0.75 secs 0.75 secs 0.75 secs
Netherrack 2 secs* 0.3 secs 0.15 secs 0.1 secs 0.1 secs 0.05 secs
Glowstone (Block) 7.5 secs* 1.15 secs 0.6 secs 0.4 secs 0.3 secs 0.2 sec

Trivia

  • Before Beta 1.2 , the pickaxe had less durability and gold pickaxes acted like wooden ones.
  • Notch said pigmen would hold iron pickaxes in the future, alongside Iron Swords.[citation needed]
  • The Pickaxe is featured in the "Time to Mine!" and the "Getting an Upgrade" achievements.
  • Before Beta 1.6.6 , Glowstone acted like a glass type block but now it has been changed to a stone type block requiring a pickaxe.[1]

References

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