Anvils in Minecraft are one of the most useful utilities the game had to offer and to be honest the game would have been too difficult without them. Ever since they were introduced into the game way back in October 2012 in the “Pretty Scary Update”, anvils have always been an integral part of every player’s gameplay. They have multiple functionalities with easy-to-use configurations, but how exactly are Anvils made in Minecraft?
To make an anvil, simply put 4 iron ingots and 3 iron blocks in the 3×3 crafting grid and arrange them correctly. First, fill the top row with iron blocks, next fill the last row with Iron ingots. Lastly, place an iron ingot in the center of the grid, then take the crafted anvil and place it in your inventory.
Anvils are very expensive and as such, investing your time and resources into making one early on in the game might not be the best choice. So a lot of the time, new players tend to wait until they are ready to upgrade their armors, tools, and even weapons with the best Enchantments possible.
An Anvil block is unique in its design, and it is also among the few Minecraft blocks (alongside gravel, sand, and the Dragon’s egg) that are affected by gravity, which means an Anvil will fall from a surface/platform until there is a solid block beneath that can stop it.
Falling anvils can deal damage to players if it happens to hit them, which means it can also be used as a rather expensive projectile. This hit damage could be up to 20 hearts if the Anvil happens to fall on a player from a height of 40 blocks. There is a lot to know about an anvil and a couple more you don’t or didn’t know if you’re a new player, so don’t worry I’ll be giving you a run through everything you need to know about this useful utility, relax and keep reading.
Materials Required to Make an Anvil
Like I said earlier, Anvils are pretty expensive especially if you just started a Minecraft world. The materials required however to make an Anvil Include the following;
- 31 Iron ore
- A Furnace or Blast Furnace
- Fuel (Charcoal, coal, etc)
- A crafting table
How to Make an Anvil in Minecraft?
Making an Anvil isn’t all that difficult, although the process that builds up to making one is a pain to deal with. Normally in the early game, I would advise players to find a village and hope they have an Anvil, but still, there is nothing bad in knowing how to make it yourself. So here is a Step-by-step process on not just how to craft an Anvil but also on how to find the materials needed.
Step 1
The first item you’ll need to make an anvil is a crafting table, so you’ll need to make a crafting table by first converting logs to wooden planks, and then converting the wooden planks to a crafting table. Check this guide on how to make a Crafting table.
Step 2
Next, you will need to use the crafting table to make the simplest pickaxe possible, either a wood or stone pickaxe will do. You first need to make a stick for the handle of the pickaxe, then once you have the stick, click on your crafting table and make a pickaxe by placing a row of wooden blocks (Or stone blocks whichever you have) on the top, then place two sticks in the middle of the remaining rows.
Use the pickaxe to mine enough cobblestones to make a Furnace or Blast Furnace. To make a Furnace, fill up every slot of your crafting table with Cobblestone.
Step 3
Next, you have to find and mine some iron for the Anvil and some coal and your fuel source. You’ll need a large amount of iron (31 Iron ingots) if you want to successfully Craft an Anvil.
Although irons are not exactly the easiest to find, you can find a lot of irons in caves and Ravines if you’re lucky enough to see them, so collecting iron should be difficult or time-consuming. However, if you do want to mine iron, you’ll need to upgrade your wooden pickaxe to a stone pickaxe otherwise the raw iron won’t come out.
Once you have found the coal, you can use it to fuel up your furnace and smelt the raw iron into Iron ingots. You’ll need a lot of coal for this job so be prepared to mine like crazy. But if you don’t want to go through the stress of searching for both coal and iron, you can as well use other sources of fuel like Charcoal or a lava bucket if they are more convenient for you.
Once you’ve found the 31 required raw irons, you can now smelt them into iron ingots using the furnace. To smelt the raw iron, click on your furnace, then place the 31 raw iron pieces in the first cell and place the fuel source in the second cell and wait for the progress bar to be complete. Next, click on the smelted iron ingots and place them in your inventory.
You can also use a blast furnace for this same process, it’s like a regular furnace but it can smelt the metal two times faster.
Once you have the 31 required pieces of iron ingots, you can now prepare to craft the Anvil.
6 Steps on How to Make an Anvil
Step 1
First, place your crafting table in your preferred location and right-click on it to open the 3×3 crafting grid GUI.
Step 2
Considering that you need 3 iron blocks, you now have to fill up the entire cells of your crafting table with iron ingots, 3 for each cell which means you’ll use a total of 18 iron ingots for 3 iron blocks.
Step 3
Now that you have the 3 iron blocks, you have to place all 3 of them in the entire first row of the crafting grid.
Step 4
Next, put an iron ingot in the middle cell of the second row
Step 5
Fill the entire last row with iron ingots, shortly afterward a crafted Anvil will appear in the crafted cell.
Step 6
Now right-click on the Anvil and place it in your inventory, and that’s all you need to know about making an Anvil.
What Is Anvil Used for in Minecraft?
Anvils have multiple applications in Minecraft for example, they are currently the only valid utility that a player can use to combine Enchanted books with weapons or tools. It is also used to fix an enchanted weapon’s durability by combining it with another enchanted weapon, which means it combines multiple weak weapons into one strong weapon or tool.
Anvils can also be used to name things and they also keep up a tool/weapon’s durability, that is if you never forget to make repairs when it’s necessary.
How To Use an Anvil
To use a crafted Anvil from your inventory, simply place it in your desired location and right-click on it to open the UI panel. Next place two valid objects in the two empty cells of the Anvil. Shortly after doing this, you’ll see the crafted item in the “Crafted” box of the Anvil, right-click this item and take it to your inventory.
Anvils can be used to combine multiple enchantments, in other words, combining two Enchanted books will join both enchantments into a single book. This effect applies to any item that you use the anvil on, so be certain you know what you’re doing with the anvil before using it otherwise stacking all your Enchantments on a single book or tool could cost you a lot of levels.
How To Repair Items with an Anvil in Minecraft?
Using the Anvil to repair items in Minecraft does cost a decent amount of materials and experience to successfully carry out. If you want to repair an item, you need to make use of the same material that the damaged item was made from. For example, if you want to repair a Diamond Sword, you need to use a Diamond ad the material for fixing the sword.
To repair an item, Simply put the damaged item in one cell, and the material for repair in the second cell. Shortly afterward, the damaged item will be slightly healed up depending on how much materials you used.
A major benefit of using an Anvil to repair a damaged item is that, if you are sacrificing an item to repair your damaged item, then all the Enchantments from the sacrificed item will be transferred to the repaired item. Sounds awesome right?
Well, it should because by using the Anvil you can create Enchantment combinations that wouldn’t be possible to make if you were to use say an Enchantment table. You should bear in mind that transferring higher-level enchantments will cost you more in terms of experience.
It’s worth noting that the Anvil will refuse all repairs at a limit of 39 levels or over.
How To Rename Items with an Anvil in Minecraft?
To rename an item in Minecraft using the Anvil costs the player about one level (So if you were level 35 before, then after renaming you’ll be level 34). Some specific chests and Equipment can be renamed, and their new name will be displayed in the item’s GUI when it is placed on the ground. Players have a maximum length of 35 characters for renaming items, and in the cases below, renaming an item has some special effects.
Mobs: Renaming a name tag makes you able to use the tags on Minecraft mobs.
Weapons: If a renamed weapon kills another player, the name of the weapon will be displayed in the death message.
Spawn Egg: If you rename a spawn egg, it produces a mob with that exact name.
How Many Times Can an Anvil Be Used Before It Breaks?
According to statistics, on Average, an Anvil can last for about 25 uses before it breaks. Besides this, an Anvil has a 12% chance of getting damaged if it falls from a height above one block. They can exist in 4 states; Undamaged, Chipped, Damaged, and finally Destroyed.
Undamaged
This is the natural state in which an Anvil exists, in this state, it has not been used much or even used at all, and it is still in good health.
Chipped
In this state, the Anvil starts degrading gradually but the damaging effects won’t be noticeable at this point.
Damaged
The Anvil has degraded to a substantial amount and the damages are noticeable on the body.
Destroyed
The final stage for an Anvil, here it has reached its limits and destroys afterward, becoming unusable.
Is an Anvil worth It in Minecraft?
Anvils are too useful in Minecraft especially in the later stages of the game mostly because this utility has a large variety of uses from adding various Enchantments to items from Enchanted books, naming/Renaming items, and repairing important items for a player.
Although an Anvil is somewhat pricey, it is definitely worth making when you do have the required materials to make it. Don’t forget to constantly use it if you want the best Armor or weapon in the game, or if you want them to last forever that is if they don’t have the unbreaking Enchantment.