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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 (see below on the Speed and Durability table).

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 summarizes the speed at which different quality pickaxes perform. Values marked with (*) and highlighted in blue indicate that no resource will be dropped when the block is destroyed by that quality of pickaxe.

Pickaxes Bare hands Wood Stone Iron Gold Diamond
Durability 60 132 251 33 1562
Smooth Stone 7.50 sec* 1.15 sec 0.60 sec 0.40 sec 0.20 sec 0.30 sec
Cobblestone 10.00 sec* 1.50 sec 0.75 sec 0.50 sec 0.25 sec 0.40 sec
Coal Ore 15.00 sec* 2.25 sec 1.15 sec 0.75 sec 0.40 sec 0.60 sec
Iron Ore 15.00 sec* 15.00 sec* 1.15 sec 0.75 sec 15.00 sec* 0.60 sec
Gold Ore 15.00 sec* 15.00 sec* 15.00 sec* 0.75 sec 15.00 sec* 0.60 sec
Diamond Ore 15.00 sec* 15.00 sec* 15.00 sec* 0.75 sec 15.00 sec* 0.60 sec
Redstone Ore 15.00 sec* 15.00 sec* 15.00 sec* 4.50 sec 15.00 sec* 4.50 sec
Lapis Lazuli Ore 15.00 sec* 15.00 sec* 1.15 sec 0.75 sec 15.00 sec* 0.60 sec
Iron Block 25.00 sec* 25.00 sec* 1.90 sec 1.25 sec 25.00 sec* 0.95 sec
Gold Block 15.00 sec* 15.00 sec* 15.00 sec* 0.75 sec 15.00 sec* 0.60 sec
Diamond Block 25.00 sec* 25.00 sec* 25.00 sec* 1.25 sec 25.00 sec* 0.95 sec
Lapis Lazuli Block 15.00 sec* 15.00 sec* 1.15 sec 0.75 sec 15.00 sec* 0.60 sec
Obsidian 50.00 sec* 50.00 sec* 50.00 sec* 50.00 sec* 50.00 sec* 15.00 sec
Cobblestone Stairs 10.00 sec* 3.00 sec 3.00 sec 3.00 sec 3.00 sec 3.00 sec
Wooden Stairs 3.00 sec 3.00 sec 3.00 sec 3.00 sec 3.00 sec 3.00 sec
Stone Slabs 10.00 sec* 1.50 sec 0.75 sec 0.50 sec 0.25 sec 0.40 sec
Furnace 17.50 sec* 5.25 sec 5.25 sec 5.25 sec 5.25 sec 5.25 sec
Sandstone 4.00 sec* 0.60 sec 0.30 sec 0.20 sec 0.10 sec 0.15 sec
Brick 10.00 sec* 3.00 sec 3.00 sec 3.00 sec 3.00 sec 3.00 sec
Netherrack 0.60 sec 0.30 sec 0.15 sec 0.10 sec 0.05 sec 0.10 sec

Redstone and Obsidian take an unusually long time to harvest because the game does not consider pickaxes to be "good" at mining them; this is probably a bug. The same goes for Furnaces, Stairs and Brick.

Notes

  • 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, one only ever needs to have 1 wood pickaxe.
  • Since the Beta 1.2 update, tools have increased durability and gold tools destroy blocks faster, making them no longer completely useless.
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