Minecraft Items

The compass is a great item to have if you're going to be wandering far from the spawn point, and can help you find your way back to the entrance when tunneling underground.

It's made from 4 iron ingots (from iron ore smelted in the furnace) and 1 redstone dust.

Arrange the 4 bars in a cross in the crafting grid, with the redstone dust in the center. A compass will appear for you to take.

The needle always points to the spawn point (not necessarily north)!

Now you know where your home is, in relation to the spawn point (in case you die).

Whenever you wander off to explore, pay attention to the direction you go in, relative to your home, and you can now use the compass to find your way home. This also works once you go underground, to make your way back to the entrance.

I've talked about the watch before because it's incredibly useful for determining the time when you can't see the sun.

A disc travels around the face of the watch in real time, and if the lighter blue sun side is near the 12 o' clock top of the watch, it is daytime, and when the darker blue moon side cross 12 o' clock, it's night. You can see how close it is to changing time of day, by seeing the day/night or night/day terminus approach the 12 o'clock spot.

Since everything comes out at night, it's nice to know when it's safe to pop out and head home, and to allow you to stay down in a cave so you don't waste the darkness trying to get back topside.

A very cool item to have when you can afford the parts.

The watch is made from 4 gold bars (smelted from gold ore) and 1 redstone dust.

Just like the compass, arrange 4 gold bars in a cross in the grid, with 1 redstone dust in the middle.

Enjoy your watch.

The bucket is easy to build, and allows you to carry water or lava which can create a flow of water or lava using the game physics. Flowing water and lava will find it's own path and fall naturally. The paths of these liquids can also be redirected by laying or destroying blocks.

The bucket itself is just 3 iron ingots, laid out in the left, right and bottom center squares of the crafting grid.

A couple other things about buckets and liquids.

To pick up water or lava that will flow, you must pick up a source water block. Any old water block won't do. You'll know it's the source block if the water flow below it disappears. This allows you not only to place water that will flow, but if you pick up the source again, with the bucket, all water beneath the flow will disappear. This is handy if you misplace it, or want to move it, or any other reason (like, when you've accidentally flooded your area).

Lava can be picked up and placed in the same way. Be careful! Stepping into lava will set you on fire, and you will die slowly unless you can get into water to put yourself out. Handle lava with care, especially when placing it and it starts flowing.

A bucket of lava placed into a furnace (instead of coal or wood) will allow you to smelt things and does not have a counter but will do about 100 transmutations before it runs out. This is if it is done right away. I don't know how long unattended lava in a furnace lasts, but it will burn out eventually, whether you have done 100 smelts or not. This will destroy the bucket in the process!

You can only hold one liquid in a bucket at any time (it's either full or empty), but you can carry multiple buckets.

Wood is extremely versatile in Minecraft and can be used to make a variety of items.

To do this, you're going to need to make wooden planks and sticks.

We discussed this earlier in the first page of the guide, but we will review.

You need to punch (or better yet, get an axe) to chop down wood blocks. Collect the wood blocks, and don't forget to chop through the leaves too to knock down saplings, and replant them to make more trees.

Wood can be placed into the crafting table (or your personal grid in inventory) to make wooden planks, and wooden planks, one atop the other, can be placed to create sticks.

In other words:

Wooden Blocks ---> Wooden Planks ---> Sticks

With these tools you can make a lot of wooden tools and items.

Doors are two blocks high, and at a click, can open and close 90 degrees to prevent monsters from entering your property. You can even provide power to them so they will open or close when activated (we'll talk about this later).

A door is made from 6 wooden planks arranged in a rectangle in the 3x3 crafting grid.

Pick up the door and put in place. Doors can be destroyed, picked up and placed elsewhere.

Note: Doors can also be made from 6 iron ingots in the same way, but they MUST be powered to open. You can't open an iron door by clicking on it.

A boat can be deployed on water to sail around at a better pace than by swimming. It also allows you to go AFK away from land without drowning.

Boats are made from 5 wooden planks placed in the 3x3 crafting grid - 3 planks on the bottom, and one on each middle side.

Boats will only move on water, and are controlled just as the avatar is controlled, but they are subject to water currents caused by gravity.

If you get out of a boat, and leave it in the water, it will tend to float away if there is not current. Take it with you, or find a way to secure it. Common methods are dropping a block in the water to keep the boat from floating away, or making docks with doors that can be opened to let the boat loose again.

You can create signs that can be affixed to walls or stuck in the ground, and right messages on them to inform, warn or otherwise communicate with other players.

A sign is made from 6 wooden planks arranged in the top and middle rows of the 3x3 crafting grid, and a stick in the bottom center square. This will create a sign you can take.

When placed, a text box will pop up allowing you to enter the text for the sign.

Signs placed on walls will face out from the wall on which it is placed.

Signs placed in the ground will face you.

The ladder allows you to climb the sheer surface of blocks, without having to setup stairs, making it an easy way to climb steep shafts (as long as you have a surface to place them on.

A ladder is made from 7 sticks, placed in an "H" pattern in the 3x3 crafting grid.

A ladder counts as an entire block, so it includes a block full of air. This lets light through the block, but also repels liquids, like lava and water.

Any creature, except for skeletons, can and will climb a ladder, so watch out.

Skeletons, who shoot arrows, can shoot up and down ladders, taking advantage of the air space between the ladder and any surrounding blocks. You can fire arrows through this space as well.

Fences are decorative and can be used to finish off yards and to create railings on buildings, but they're main focus is to keep out monsters.

They appear to be about one block high, but actually also block one space above them, making it impossible for anything to jump over them, accept for spiders, and arrows from skeletons can be fired over them.

Fences are made from 6 sticks placed in the bottom two rows of the 3x3 crafting grid. Each application of 6 sticks makes 2 fences (which will cover 2 lateral blocks).

Always place fences facing squarely where you want the fence to go - If you want it to go east/west, face the block you are going to place it on squarely facing north or south. Not being square can place the fence in the opposite direction of where you want it, especially if you aren't ready/are ready to make it turn at a 90 degree angle.

Fences also have a tendency to disappear for no reason (a glitch I hope they fix soon). Sometimes placing an item next to an "invisible fence" will make the fence appear.