How Do You Make Pottery In Minecraft?
Pottery has become an increasingly popular part of Minecraft gameplay. Thanks to recent updates, players can now engage in the full pottery making process to create a variety of decorative and functional items.
The main benefits of pottery in Minecraft include:
- Allows for creative expression through designing customized pottery items
- Provides early game access to vital items like plant pots and furnace materials
- Gives another fun activity alongside mining, crafting, and exploring
With the right materials and techniques, Minecraft players can produce pottery objects like vases, plates, mugs, bowls, bricks, and more. This guide will cover everything you need to know to start making your own pottery in Minecraft.
Gather Clay
Clay generates naturally underwater in rivers, beaches, and ocean floors in Minecraft worlds. According to Sportskeeda, clay appears as bluish blocks when found in these locations.
To gather clay, you’ll need at minimum an iron or diamond pickaxe and shovel. A pickaxe is required to mine the clay blocks, while a shovel allows you to dig up clay blocks faster. It’s also handy to have an empty bucket to scoop up water sources and reach clay underground.
Collect at least 1-2 stacks of clay blocks which is 16-32 blocks. This should provide enough clay for making basic pottery items. If you plan to build more elaborate pottery pieces or structures from terracotta, collect 3-4 stacks or more.
Smelt Clay into Terracotta
To smelt clay into terracotta in Minecraft, you’ll need to use a furnace. Simply place clay blocks into the top slot of a furnace and fuel such as coal, charcoal, or wood planks in the bottom slot. It takes about 10 seconds to smelt 1 clay block into 1 terracotta [1]. Therefore, smelting a full stack of 64 clay blocks into terracotta will take approximately 11 minutes and 20 seconds. Using a blast furnace speeds up the smelting process considerably, cutting the time down to around 5 minutes for a full stack. However, blast furnaces require iron ingots to craft which may not be readily available early on. Overall, furnaces are the easiest method for beginners to smelt their clay into colorful terracotta blocks.
Craft Terracotta into Desired Shape
Once you have terracotta, you can craft it into various decorative blocks and items using a crafting table. Some things you can make include:
- Flower pots – Craft 4 terracotta in a square shape to make a flower pot, which can hold small flowers and saplings.
- Bricks – Craft 4 terracotta in a 2×2 square to make terracotta bricks, which have a brick-like texture.
- Slabs – Craft 3 terracotta in a row to make 6 terracotta slabs.
- Stairs – Craft 6 terracotta in an L shape to make 4 terracotta stairs.
Terracotta can also be crafted into walls, pillars, and other shapes for decoration. To see all the crafting recipes involving terracotta, check the Minecraft Wiki.
Add Dye for Color
Once you have crafted uncolored terracotta, you can add dye to it to change its color. This allows you to customize the look of your pottery creations. To dye terracotta, place it in a crafting table or inventory crafting grid along with the dye of your choice.
Each dye will give the terracotta a different color. Here are some of the dye recipes:
- Cactus Green Dye – Crafted from cactus
- Rose Red Dye – Crafted from roses
- Lapis Lazuli Dye – Crafted from lapis lazuli
- Ink Sac Dye – Obtained by killing squids
You can combine dyes to create other colors. For example, red and blue dye will make purple terracotta. Experiment with different dye combinations to get the colors you want for your pottery.
Dyeing terracotta allows for tons of customization options. You can make spotted, striped, or ombre designs. Or keep batches of solid-colored terracotta on hand for pottery projects.
Glazing
Glazing allows you to add even more color and decoration to your pottery creations in Minecraft. To glaze terracotta, you will first need to craft colored terracotta. Then, craft that colored terracotta with a dye of your choice to create glazed terracotta.
For example, if you wanted a blue glazed terracotta, you would:
- Craft some white terracotta using clay balls
- Craft the white terracotta with lapis lazuli to make blue terracotta
- Finally, craft the blue terracotta with a dye of your choice to make blue glazed terracotta
The different glazed terracotta recipes allow for lots of customization options. You can create vibrant hues by combining different base terracotta colors with different dye colors. This allows glazed terracotta to be used decoratively in builds.
Some key pros of using glazed terracotta are:
- More color variety than regular terracotta
- Unique textures and patterns
- Can be crafted into existing colored terracotta
The main con is that glazed terracotta takes more resources to craft than regular terracotta. But the extra color options are worth it for decorative builds.
Kilns
Kilns allow you to fire clay much faster than using a regular furnace in Minecraft. Kilns are blocks that provide constant heat at high temperatures, which rapidly bakes clay objects into hardened terracotta. Rather than waiting for each individual piece of clay to smelt in a furnace, players can fire multiple clay items at once by placing them in a kiln.
Kilns can be found naturally generating in some villages. These are made of bricks and have a chamber inside to place clay items. Kilns can also be crafted by players using campfires and various stone materials like cobblestone or stone bricks. To operate a kiln, simply right-click it while holding clay. The clay will rapidly transform into terracotta inside the kiln.
Using kilns streamlines the clay firing process and allows mass production of terracotta items in Minecraft. Place clay blocks, terracotta, or glazed terracotta inside to quickly harden them for building projects and decorations. Just be sure to fuel the kiln occasionally with logs, coal, or other flammable items.
Pottery Wheel
The pottery wheel is an essential tool for efficiently shaping clay into symmetrical pots, bowls, vases, and other ceramic wares. In Minecraft, players can craft and use a pottery wheel to aid in pottery creation.
To make a pottery wheel, place a stone slab, stone stairs, and stone pressure plate in a vertical column in the crafting grid. This will yield a pottery wheel item that can then be placed down. When used, the pottery wheel will spin, allowing players to shape clay items much faster than by hand.
Tips for using the pottery wheel effectively in Minecraft:
- Sit in front of the spinning wheel and place clay in the center to begin shaping.
- Hold down right click while turning the mouse to pull the clay upwards into taller shapes.
- Release right click periodically to thin out sections and refine the overall form.
- Remove the shaped clay item before it is fully centered to avoid deforming the base.
- Firing shaped items in a kiln will harden them into finished ceramic wares.
The pottery wheel mod mentioned in this Reddit post provides an immersive pottery wheel experience for players to try.
Advanced Pottery Techniques
There are several advanced techniques that allow Minecraft players to take their pottery-making to the next level:
Making Molds
Molds allow players to mass produce pottery pieces that have the exact same shape. Molds can be made by placing blocks in the desired shape on the ground, then pouring clay into the mold. Once the clay hardens, the mold blocks can be destroyed to reveal the finished piece.
Painting/Texturing
Players can use dyes to add different colors to their pottery pieces. Multiple dyes can be combined to create custom colors and designs. Paintings such as images or textures can also be applied by carefully placing dye in specific patterns.
Automated Systems
Using redstone components, players can automate parts of the pottery creation process, such as automatically smelting clay balls into terracotta or transporting finished pieces using hoppers and chests. Redstone can also be used to trigger the dispensing of dyes for painting.
Automated pottery systems allow players to mass produce high volumes of pottery without having to manually craft each piece. Systems can range from simple to complex depending on the level of automation desired.
Pottery Uses
Pottery has several key uses in Minecraft:
Decorating builds – Decorated pots made with pottery shards can be used to decorate homes and other builds. The unique patterns on the sides of decorated pots make them attractive additions to shelves, tables, and other surfaces (Source).
Crafting other items – Pottery shards can be crafted together with bricks to create tuff blocks, a blast resistant building material (Source). Players can also smelt clay blocks back into terracotta to craft concrete powder.
Trading – Villagers such as Fletcher will buy and sell pottery items like clay balls, pottery shards, and flower pots. Trading pottery can help players acquire emeralds and other useful items from villagers.
