Crafting Grid — Iron Pickaxe
Iron Ingot
Iron Ingot
Iron Ingot
Stick
Stick
→
Iron Pickaxe
Crafting Recipe
3 iron ingots (top row) + 2 sticks (center middle+bottom) = 1 iron pickaxe. The most important tool upgrade: now you can mine diamonds, gold, redstone, and emeralds.
Mid-to-Late Workhorse
An iron pickaxe mines gold, diamond, emerald and redstone, and is the tool you will use the longest. At 250 durability and speed 6, it beats diamond for everyday cost-efficiency.
Enchant Priority
Fortune III is mandatory — it doubles yields of diamond, emerald and coal, paying for itself almost immediately. Then Unbreaking III and Mending; Mending repairs the pickaxe from mining XP so it effectively never breaks.
Related
✓ Last verified on Minecraft 1.22 (2026-09-22) Minecraft mechanics change with every update — this guide is only guaranteed to work in the stated version.