Block of the Month: Smithing Table

“What more?” I hear you cry. Well, first of all, “What more?” isn’t very good English. But second of all, smithing tables now let you use smithing templates to add a nifty-looking colored pattern on your armor called a “trim”.

To use this functionality, you’ll need an armor piece, a smithing template (found in various ancient places),  and a material that matches the color of the trim you want. Lapis makes blue, emerald makes green, nether quartz makes white, and so on – experiment with different materials to see what works. We’ll go deeper into smithing templates another day because this article is about the smithing table. 

What else can you do with this block? Well, as mentioned above you can upgrade diamond gear to netherite gear, you can convert an unemployed villager to a toolsmith, you can burn it in a furnace as fuel, and you can put it under a note block to get the “bass” sound.

Oh, where do you get one? You can craft one with two iron ingots and four planks, or steal one from a toolsmith in a village. They also occasionally spawn in trail ruins.

In the real world, toolsmiths are a kind of metalsmiths who specialize in making tools – and a table is a very important part of their workshop. It’s used to plan out projects, lay out parts, work on components, and assemble the final tool.

A typical smithing table (more often called a workbench) might feature a vice for holding things in place, a tool rack for keeping tools organized, rulers for measuring things, wheels so it can be moved around the workshop, and perhaps shelves or drawers for storing components.

So if you’d like your Minecraft home to feature a workshop, then definitely consider installing a smithing table. It’s an iron-clad choice for crafters!