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How to make an anvil in Minecraft

Learn how to make a Minecraft anvil, tips for how to use it to repair or rename them, and how to cause falling anvils to make short work of enemies.

Minecraft anvil, iron ingot

Want to know how to make a Minecraft anvil? It is a great tool to have in your home base as you can use it to repair and rename items, as well as combine enchanted items. The anvil is similar to a grindstone; however, any items used on the Minecraft anvil will keep any applied enchantments. An anvil can become damaged over time and has a 12% chance of damaging every time it’s used – this doesn’t affect the anvil’s function, but it will wear down until it’s eventually destroyed. It’s impossible to repair an anvil, so you’ll need to keep the Minecraft anvil recipe to hand.

An anvil can also be damaged and destroyed by falling. If an air block is below an anvil, it becomes a falling anvil and damages any player or mob it falls onto. It acts like falling sand, gravel, concrete powder, and dragon eggs. As well as mining for an existing anvil using a pickaxe, you can also craft them in one of the best PC games using the following Minecraft anvil recipe.

Minecraft anvil recipe - a screen showing the anvil recipe, which has three iron blocks on the top row, then three iron ingots on the bottom row and a single iron ingot in the middle slot.

Minecraft anvil recipe

If you’re looking for how to craft a Minecraft anvil, you’ve come to the right place. You’ll need the following ingredients for the Minecraft anvil recipe.

  • Block of Iron x3
  • Iron Ingot x4

In the crafting grid, place the three blocks of iron in the top row, one iron ingot in the middle square, and three iron ingot blocks in the bottom row.

Minecraft anvil - the player is repairing an Iron Shovel with one Iron Ingot.

How to repair items with Minecraft anvils

Repairing items on your Minecraft anvil costs materials and experience. You’ll need to use the damaged item with the same material or item when repairing items. For example, if you were repairing an iron shovel, you’ll need to use an iron ingot as the material.

One of the benefits of using an anvil is that if you’re sacrificing an item to repair the damaged items, all enchantments will transfer from the sacrificed item. Pretty neat. This can produce enchantment combinations you can’t always create using an enchantment table. If you’re transferring higher-level enchantments, this will cost more, and it’s worth noting that the anvil has a limit of 39 levels and will refuse repairs over that.

How to rename items

Renaming items using a Minecraft anvil will cost one level. Certain chests and equipment can be renamed and will display the name in their GUI when placed. The maximum length for renaming items is 35 characters, and the following items have special effects when renamed.

  • Mobs – Renaming name tags allow you to use them on Minecraft mobs.
  • Weapons – Renamed weapons that kill another player have their name appear in the death message.
  • Spawn egg – Renaming a spawn egg produces a mob with that name.

There you have it, a Minecraft anvil recipe along with all its functions and uses. You can also find damaged anvils in the forge room of a woodland mansion if you want to create your own using these cool Minecraft house designs.

Minecraft anvil recipe - several anvils about to fall because the block of wood underneath is burning.

Minecraft falling anvils

Like in your favourite cartoons, you can use a falling anvil as a weapon or tool in Minecraft. Anvils will make a metallic ring when they land on something and dish out a maximum of 40 damage if dropped from very high up. If you die to a falling anvil, you’ll get a special message in the chat log.

You can even create a quick anvil-based, er, ‘harvesting’ device on your Minecraft farm to instantly kill any mobs you place in there, saving you some hassle. Just create a tall chamber, drop all the mob-spawning eggs you want in the bottom, and then chuck an anvil in afterwards.

Wondering how other blocks work, such as the Minecraft honey block, or want to find all the materials you need to start using your anvil in Minecraft? Check out the best Minecraft PE seeds or how to find a Minecraft village to get a head start.