Anvil

This article is about the block. For the file format, see Anvil file format.

Anvil

Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Yes (64), same damage state only
Tool
Blast resistance	1,200
Hardness	5
Luminant	No
Transparent	Yes
Flammable	No
Catches fire from lava	No

An anvil is a block that allows players to repair items, rename items, and combine enchantments.

Obtaining

Breaking

Anvils can be mined using any pickaxe. If mined without a pickaxe they drop nothing.

Block	Anvil
Hardness	5
Tool
Breaking time
Default	25
Wooden	3.75
Stone	1.9
Iron	1.25
Diamond	0.95
Netherite	0.85
Golden	0.65

Natural generation

A damaged anvil generates in the "Forge room" of the woodland mansion.

Crafting

A total of 31 iron ingots (including 27 for three blocks of iron) are required to craft an anvil.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Block of Iron + Iron Ingot

Usage

Repairing and renaming items

Main article: Anvil/Mechanics

Anvils have two modes to repair items that have a durability rating:

• As with the grindstone, a player may repair items by combining two similar items. With the anvil, however, the target retains its enchantments and may gain new ones from the sacrificed items.
• Alternatively, a player can use materials originally required in the crafting of the item (iron ingots for iron items with durability, diamonds for diamond items with durability) to repair a single item. One material can repair 25% of the target's maximum durability. However, this is a significantly less economical option as the cost of combined materials could be put toward a new tool altogether, which can also be combined to form a full durability tool. (E.g. combining 2 diamonds shovels cost only 2 diamonds to make both shovels. Fully repairing one with individual diamonds would take 4 diamonds)

In addition, the player can rename any item - not just items with durability - by using an anvil.

Repairing

See also: Repair

Example showing a repair of two diamond pickaxes.

Repairing with materials works for the most part, but not with all items: in general, repairing works for items with their material in the default name. For example, an anvil can repair an iron pickaxe with materials (iron in this case) while an anvil cannot repair bows or shears except with other bows or shears. As a special case, chain armor can be repaired with iron ingots, turtle shells can be repaired with scutes, and elytra can be repaired with phantom membranes. The repair does not need to be complete; one material repairs ¹⁄₄ of the item's maximum durability.

Repairing with a matching item works for any item with durability including bows, shears and so on. The items must match in type. For example, a golden pickaxe cannot combine with an iron one.

Note that in both cases the resulting durability is limited to the item's maximum, and there is no discount for "over-repair".

As a subset of repairing one item with another, the anvil can transfer enchantments from the sacrifice to the target. This can have a synergistic effect when both items share identical enchantments, or simply add to each other when they do not. Two Sharpness II swords can be combined to make a Sharpness III sword, for example, or a pickaxe with Efficiency can be combined with one that has Unbreaking. This can produce enchantments and combinations that are not possible with an enchanting table. But even so, some enchantments cannot be combined if they are similar, or contradicting, in terms of what they do. If the target is damaged, the player has to pay for the repair as well as the transfer.

Transferring high-level enchantments is more expensive, and renaming an item has an additional surcharge. The anvil has a limit of 39 levels; beyond that, repairs are refused. This limit is not present in Creative mode.

Every time armor or tools are repaired, the minimum experience cost doubles (e.g., 1 level, 2 levels, 4 levels, 8 levels, etc.).

Renaming

Any item or stack of items can be renamed at a cost of one level plus any prior-work penalty. If the player is only renaming, the maximum total cost is 39 levels. The maximum length for renaming is 35 characters. Some items have special effects when renamed:

• A name tag must be renamed before it can be used.
• A renamed weapon that kills another player causes the name to appear in the death message.
• A renamed spawn egg produces a mob with the same name.
• Chests, trapped chests, shulker boxes, furnaces, hoppers, droppers, dispensers, minecarts with chests, minecarts with hoppers, enchantment tables, barrel, smoker, blast furnace and brewing stands display the name in their GUI when placed.
• A renamed command blocks use their name in chat messages instead of [@].

Any name changes to items are applied to the data tag {Item:{tag:{display:{Name:"{\"text\":\"<name>\"}"}}}}. Similarly this data tag can be accessed by the nbt argument using target selectors.

Enchanted books

Enchanted books are used to enchant tools. Enchanted books themselves can be combined to create higher-tiered books. This makes an anvil the alternative to an enchantment table.

Falling anvils

When there are air blocks below an anvil, the anvil falls in the same way sand, gravel, concrete powder, and dragon eggs fall. A placed anvil cannot be pushed or pulled by pistons,‌^{[Java Edition only]} but a falling anvil can. This is different in Bedrock Edition where anvils can be pushed and pulled by pistons. Anvils make a metallic clang sound when they land.

A falling anvil damages any player or mob it falls on. The damage amount depends on fall distance: 2 per block fallen after the first (e.g., an anvil that falls 4 blocks deals 6 damage). The damage is capped at 40 × 20, no matter how far the anvil falls. Wearing a helmet reduces the damage by ¹⁄₄, but this costs durability on the helmet. When a player dies by an anvil falling on them, the chat area displays the message: "*Player name* was squashed by a falling anvil." However, if a player is merely touched by an anvil entity or falling anvil, no damage occurs until the falling anvil becomes a solid anvil-block in the airspace where the player is located. Falling anvils can be manipulated by TNT cannons, passing through mobs or players without damaging them.

An anvil that falls on an item entity destroys the item.

Maps

In Bedrock Edition, an anvil can be used instead of a crafting table to zoom a map out, to clone a map, or to place a player position marker on a map.

Name	Ingredients	Anvil usage	Description
Map or Locator Map (zoomed out)	Map or Locator Map + Paper	Repair & NameMapLocator Map	Bedrock Edition only. Supplying 8 sheets of paper results in a zoomed-out version of the input map.
Map or Locator Map (cloned)	Map or Locator Map + Empty Map	Repair & NameMapLocator Map22	Bedrock Edition only. Only one copy can be made at a time. The input map must be a locator map for the output to be a locator map; an empty map has no effect.
Locator Map	Map + Compass	Repair & NameMap	Bedrock Edition only. Maps crafted with only paper do not show the location marker; to add it, a compass must be added to the map.

However, with the introduction of the cartography table, this feature became dispensable.

Becoming damaged

With each use, an anvil has a 12% chance to become damaged – degrading one stage at a time, first becoming chipped, then damaged, then eventually destroyed. An anvil typically survives for 25 uses on average or approximately one use per 1.24 iron ingots used in crafting the anvil.

An anvil can be damaged and destroyed from falling. If it falls from a height greater than one block, the chance of degrading by one stage is 5% × the number of blocks fallen.

The damage state does not affect the anvil's function, but only anvils of the same damage state can stack in inventory.

Sounds

Sound	Subtitle	Namespaced ID	Subtitle ID	Source	Pitch	Volume	Attenuation distance
	Anvil hit	block.anvil.hit	subtitles.block.generic.hit	Blocks	0.5	0.1625	16
	Anvil break	block.anvil.break	subtitles.block.generic.break	Blocks	0.8	0.65	16
	Anvil place	block.anvil.place	subtitles.block.generic.place	Blocks	0.8	0.65	16
	Footsteps	block.anvil.step	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps	Blocks	1.0	0.045	16
	Anvil fall	block.anvil.fall	(Plays when fallen on from a height)	Blocks	0.75	0.15	16
	Anvil destroy	block.anvil.destroy	subtitles.block.anvil.destroy	Blocks	1.0	1.0	16
	Anvil land	block.anvil.land	subtitles.block.anvil.land	Blocks	1.0	1.0	16
	Anvil use	block.anvil.use	subtitles.block.anvil.use	Blocks	1.0	1.0	16

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Item tags (JE)	Translation key
Anvil	anvil	anvil	block.minecraft.anvil
Chipped Anvil	chipped_anvil	anvil	block.minecraft.chipped_anvil
Damaged Anvil	damaged_anvil	anvil	block.minecraft.damaged_anvil

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Numeric ID	Translation key
Anvil	anvil	145	tile.anvil.intact.name tile.anvil.slightlyDamaged.name tile.anvil.veryDamaged.name

Block states

See also: Block states

Java Edition:

Name	Default value	Allowed values	Description
facing	north	east north south west	An anvil pointing north or south is aligned with its long dimension pointing north–south. An anvil pointing east or west is aligned with its long dimension pointing east–west. This value is 90° clockwise from the direction a player faces while placing an anvil.

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Default value	Allowed values	Description
damage	undamaged	broken	Broken Anvil (inaccessible, uses smooth texture)
		slightly_damaged	Slightly Damaged Anvil.
		undamaged	Anvil.
		very_damaged	Very Damaged Anvil.
direction	0	0 1 2 3	An anvil pointing north or south is aligned with its long dimension pointing north–south. An anvil pointing east or west is aligned with its long dimension pointing east–west. This value is 90° clockwise from the direction a player faces while placing an anvil.

Block data

See also: Data values

In Bedrock Edition, anvils use the following data values:

Item

	DV	Description
	0	Anvil
	1	Slightly Damaged Anvil
	2	Very Damaged Anvil

Block

	DV	Description
	0	Anvil, facing West
	1	Anvil, facing North
	2	Anvil, facing East
	3	Anvil, facing South
	4	Slightly Damaged Anvil, facing West
	5	Slightly Damaged Anvil, facing North
	6	Slightly Damaged Anvil, facing East
	7	Slightly Damaged Anvil, facing South
	8	Very Damaged Anvil, facing West
	9	Very Damaged Anvil, facing North
	10	Very Damaged Anvil, facing East
	11	Very Damaged Anvil, facing South

Falling block entity

Falling Block

Size	Height: 0.98 Blocks Width: 0.98 Blocks

Main article: Falling Block

• Dynamic block entity data
  • Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template
  •  TileEntityData: Optional. The tags of the block entity for this block.
  •  BlockState: The falling block represented by this entity.
    •  Name: The namespaced ID of the block.
    •  Properties: Optional. The block states of the block.
      •  Name: The block state name and its value.
  •  Time: The number of ticks the entity has existed. If set to 0, the moment it ticks to 1, it vanishes if the block at its location has a different ID than the entity's TileID. If the block at its location has the same ID as its TileID when Time ticks from 0 to 1, the block is deleted, and the entity continues to fall, having overwritten it. When Time goes above 600, or above 100 while the block is below Y=0, the entity is deleted.
  •  DropItem: 1 or 0 (true/false) – true if the block should drop as an item when it breaks. Any block that does not have an item form with the same ID as the block does not drop even if this is set.
  •  HurtEntities: 1 or 0 (true/false) – true if the block should hurt entities it falls on.
  •  FallHurtMax: The maximum hit points of damage to inflict on entities that intersect this falling_block . For vanilla falling_block, always 40 × 20.
  •  FallHurtAmount: Multiplied by the FallDistance to calculate the amount of damage to inflict. By default this value is always 2.

Achievements

Main article: Achievement

Icon	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
	Organizational Wizard	Name a Shulker Box with an Anvil	—	30G	Bronze

History

Java Edition Indev
February 5, 2010					Anvils were mentioned by Notch.
Java Edition
October 7, 2012					Dinnerbone tweets the first images of the anvil's interface.
October 10, 2012					Dinnerbone tweets the first screenshot of the anvil itself.
1.4.2		12w41a			Added anvils.
					Anvils currently require one iron ingot and six blocks of iron: Ingredients Crafting recipe Block of Iron + Iron Ingot
		12w42a			Anvils now have an easier crafting recipe.
					It is now possible to repair tools using anvils, by using more of the material it is made of (such as adding diamonds to a nearly broken diamond pickaxe).
					Items that are renamed now have item names that appear as italic text.
					The # Levels information inside anvils has now been renamed to Enchantment cost.
		1.4			Added new sounds for the anvil.
					The level cap for anvils for creative mode have now been removed.
1.4.6		12w49a			Enchanted books have now been added, which can only be used with the anvil.
		12w50a			Enchanting non-tools with enchanted books using the anvil now works only in creative mode.
					Silk Touch can now be applied to shears by using the anvil, meaning cobwebs can now be harvested.
1.5		13w02a			Mobs spawned from renamed spawn eggs, from using the anvil, have the name of their spawn egg, and their names appear in the death message of them killing a player.
					Mobs that are spawned from renamed spawn eggs, from using the anvil, can now display their custom name as nametag using an NBT tag.
					Brewing stands, chests, dispensers, enchantment tables, furnaces and trapped chests that are renamed using anvils now display their new name in their GUI where the normal name used to appear.
		13w04a			Mobs now show the name given to them (either by renaming their spawn egg using an anvil or by external editors) above their head when the player looks directly at them within hitting range.
1.6.1		1.6			Renaming a spawn egg "Dinnerbone" or "Grumm" using an anvil now causes the mob to spawn upside down (this also works with renaming name tags).
1.7.4		13w48b			Renaming a sheep spawn egg "jeb" using an anvil now causes the sheep to spawn with multicolored wool (this also works with renaming name tags).
1.8		14w02a			The costs of using anvils have now been reduced to balance out with the new enchanting system.
					Renaming items using anvils now costs only 1 level.
					Repairing costs using anvils have now been reduced, 1 level per raw material or sacrifice regardless of durability restored.
					Extra costs for repairing an enchanted tool using anvils have now been eliminated. Costs for combining enchantments have now been reduced.
					Repairing costs while using anvils can no longer be kept down by renaming items.
		14w04a			Prior work cost increase while using anvils has now been changed from linear (1 per repair) to exponential (times 2 plus 1 per repair).
					Repairing with a "sacrifice" while using anvils now costs 2 levels rather than only 1.
1.9		15w42a			Renaming an item while using anvils no longer incurs a prior work penalty.
1.11		16w32a			Anvils now give sounds when they break.
		16w35a			Renamed items from anvils now keep their name when picked back up.
		16w39a			A damaged anvil now generates in woodland mansions.
1.11.1		?			Anvils no longer allow enchanted books to apply to items, if no change in enchantments would take effect. This can occur if all enchantments on the book are incompatible with existing enchantments on the item – or if the enchanted book has no enchantments.
1.13		17w47a			The different anvil damage block states for the anvil ID have now been split up into their own IDs.
					"Slightly Damaged Anvil" and "Very Damaged Anvil" renamed to "Chipped Anvil" and "Damaged Anvil", respectively.
					Prior to The Flattening, this block's numeral ID was 145.
1.14		18w43a			The textures of anvils have now been changed.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.12.1		build 1			Added anvils.
0.14.0		build 1			Anvils are now needed to add the markers onto maps by putting a map and a compass in.
0.15.0		build 1			Anvils can now be moved by pistons.
Pocket Edition
?					Renamed items using anvils now keep their name when picked back up.
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			Very damaged anvils now generate in woodland mansions.
Bedrock Edition
?					Added broken anvils.
1.2.13		beta 1.2.13.5			Anvils with cracks now display these cracks on the raised portion of the base plate as well.
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			The textures of anvils have now been changed.
Legacy Console Edition
TU14	CU1	1.05	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added anvils.
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3		Anvil repairing has now been rebalanced as per Java 1.8 changes.
		1.90			The textures of anvils have now been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added anvils.

Issues

Issues relating to "Anvil" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

• The falling ability of the anvil is a reference to the common cartoon trope.
• If an item is renamed, such as diamonds, it cannot stack with unnamed or differently-named items.
• For unenchanted items, "unit repair" can easily cost more material than just crafting a new item or combining damaged items. The exception is armor, where players can use less material at the cost of experience levels.
• If placed on top of exploding TNT blocks, the explosion does not affect the surrounding area. This is because the anvil falls into the space the TNT entity is occupying, and since the TNT's explosion power is not high enough to destroy the anvil, no blocks are destroyed.
• In Java edition. Any item can be enchanted with the anvil. The reason is unknown.

Gallery

• 

  The first screenshot of the anvil.

• 

  The Anvil GUI for Bedrock Edition

• 

  A series of screenshots showing the item repair interface.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

  Top down view of the three stages of anvils. From left to right: anvil, chipped anvil, damaged anvil

• 

  3D view of the three stages of anvils. From left to right: anvil, chipped anvil, damaged anvil

References

Blocks

View at: Template:Blocks/content [edit]

Entities

View at: Template:Entities/content [edit]