This is chapter 3 of the Minecraft Basics Guide.
Continues from First crafting part 1 – Crafting Table and Wooden tools
Stone Pickaxe
Once you obtained 3 Cobblestone by mining Stone with the Wooden Pickaxe, put them in the Crafting Table with 2 Sticks:
Now you will be able to use this Pickaxe to mine Iron Ore (which can’t be mined using a Wooden Pickaxe). Once you break an Iron Ore, this will drop Raw Iron.
You can find Iron Ore underground, so you can try to dig and look for them inside caves.
It’s better if you look for them on the side of a mountain or some hills, at least before having proper tools. Caves can be quite dangerous.
Furnace
To craft a Furnace, put 8 Cobblestone into your Crafting Table.
Place it on the ground, by right-clicking while holding it in your hand.
You can use a Furnace to cook meat (which we will see on the next episode of this guide) or to smelt some blocks. For now we will need it to turn Raw Iron into Iron Ingots. To do so, place the Raw Iron into the Furnace top slot.
In order to work, the Furnace will need some fuel. There are many items that can be used for this purpose, like Lava or Coal, but for now we will just use some Wood. You can use either Wood or Wooden Planks, to do so just place them in the Furnace bottom slot (raw Wood will burn for longer than Wooden Planks).
When the smelting process is done, you will have obtained your first Iron Ingots. Take them by clicking on the icon and put them in your inventory.
Iron tools
By using your Iron Ingots you will be able to craft the following tools: Iron Pickaxe, Iron Axe, Iron Shovel, Iron Sword. They are the essential ones.
The Iron Axe will make you get wood much faster:
The Iron Pickaxe will make you mine faster and it’s also needed to mine Diamonds and Gold:
The Iron Shovel will make you dig faster:
The Iron Sword makes more damage when used to attack mobs or other players:
You can also make the Wooden and Stone versions of these tools, but the Iron ones are better, more efficient and more durable. For example, an Iron Pickaxe will mine much faster than a Stone one.
You could also make Golden tools, Diamond tools or Netherrite tools, but the materials needed to craft them are more rare.
That’s it for now, in the next chapter of this guide we will see how to survive your first night in Minecraft.
Continues in How to survive your first night.
