How to Craft a Wooden Pickaxe
The wooden pickaxe is one of the first tools you’ll make in Minecraft. It’s not the strongest or most durable, but it gets the job done early game. You’ll need it to mine stone and collect materials for better tools.
Materials You Need
To craft a wooden pickaxe, gather these materials:
- 2 Sticks
- 3 Wood Planks (any type works: oak, spruce, birch, jungle, acacia, dark oak, mangrove, bamboo, crimson, warped, or cherry)
You don’t need all the different plank types. Just pick whichever wood you have available.
Crafting Steps
1. Open Your Crafting Table
Place down a crafting table and open it. You’ll see a 3×3 grid where you can arrange items.
2. Arrange the Materials
Place the planks and sticks in this exact pattern:
- Top row: 3 wood planks
- Middle row: 1 stick in the center
- Bottom row: 1 stick in the center
The pattern matters. If you don’t line it up right, it won’t craft.
3. Grab Your Pickaxe
Once you’ve placed everything correctly, the wooden pickaxe will appear in the output box. Click it to move it to your inventory.
Finding It in Creative Mode
If you’re in Creative mode, you can find the wooden pickaxe in the Tools menu. In newer versions (1.19.3 and up), it’s under Tools & Utilities.
Stats and Durability
The wooden pickaxe deals 2 damage when used as a weapon, but that’s not what you want it for. It has 59 durability, so it won’t last forever. You’ll break through it pretty quick when mining stone blocks.
Enchantments You Can Use
If you want to improve your wooden pickaxe, these enchantments help:
- Efficiency – Mine faster
- Unbreaking – Makes it last longer
- Silk Touch – Collect fragile blocks intact
- Fortune – Get more drops from ore
- Mending – Repair it with experience orbs
Command to Get One
If you want to spawn a wooden pickaxe using commands:
/give @p wooden_pickaxe 1
This works in Java Edition 1.13 and newer. For older versions (1.8-1.12), use:
/give @p wooden_pickaxe 1 0
What’s Next?
Once you’ve got a wooden pickaxe, you can mine stone and cobblestone. This leads to crafting a stone pickaxe, which is your next upgrade. Eventually you’ll work your way up to iron, diamond, and netherite.