An anvil is one of the most important blocks for late-game Minecraft. It lets you repair tools, weapons and armor, combine enchantments, apply enchanted books and rename items. It is expensive to craft, because it needs a lot of iron, and it slowly breaks with use, so knowing how to make and use an anvil efficiently saves resources and experience. This guide shows how to make an anvil in Minecraft, the full recipe and iron cost, how to use it, how anvil damage works, and how to avoid the dreaded Too Expensive message in Java and Bedrock Edition.
How to make an anvil in Minecraft
Craft an anvil on a crafting table with 3 blocks of iron and 4 iron ingots.
| Row | Left | Middle | Right |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top | Block of iron | Block of iron | Block of iron |
| Middle | Empty | Iron ingot | Empty |
| Bottom | Iron ingot | Iron ingot | Iron ingot |
Each block of iron is made from 9 iron ingots, so the anvil costs 31 iron ingots in total. That is a lot early on, so many players wait until they have an iron farm or a good mining trip.
Step by step
- Mine iron ore with a stone pickaxe or better, and smelt the raw iron into ingots in a furnace or blast furnace.
- Craft 27 ingots into 3 blocks of iron (9 ingots each).
- Place the 3 blocks of iron across the top row of a crafting table.
- Place 1 ingot in the center and 3 ingots across the bottom row.
- Take the anvil and place it. It faces sideways relative to you.
Where to find iron fast
- Mining: iron ore is most common around Y 16 and in large veins near Y 232 in mountains; huge iron veins with raw iron blocks appear deep underground.
- Iron golems: each drops 3 to 5 iron ingots. An iron farm in a village gives a steady supply.
- Chests: villages, shipwrecks and buried treasure often have iron.
- Naturally generated anvils: some village weaponsmith and toolsmith houses and woodland mansion rooms contain anvils you can mine with a pickaxe, saving all that iron.
How to use an anvil
Right-click the anvil to open its interface. There are two input slots and one output slot, plus a text field for renaming. The XP cost for each action appears at the bottom.
Repair tools and armor
- With materials: put the damaged item in the first slot and its material in the second, such as diamonds for diamond tools or iron ingots for iron armor. Each unit of material restores 25 percent of the item’s durability.
- With another item: combine two damaged items of the same type, such as two iron pickaxes. The result gets the combined durability plus a 12 percent bonus, and keeps enchantments from both.
Combine enchantments
Put an enchanted item in the first slot and an enchanted book or another enchanted item of the same type in the second. Compatible enchantments merge. If both have the same enchantment at the same level, it upgrades one level, for example two Sharpness IV become Sharpness V, up to the maximum. Conflicting enchantments, such as Sharpness and Smite, cannot be combined; see Smite vs Sharpness.
Rename items
Type a new name in the text box. Renaming costs 1 level plus any prior work penalty. Renamed name tags are how you name pets and mobs, and naming a mob Dinnerbone or Grumm flips it upside down.
Anvil damage: chipped, damaged and broken
Every time you use an anvil, there is a 12 percent chance it gets damaged. An anvil goes from normal to chipped, then damaged, and then breaks completely. On average, an anvil lasts about 25 uses. Falling anvils also have a chance to be damaged when they land. There is no way to repair a damaged anvil in vanilla survival, so keep a stack of iron for a replacement.
Too Expensive: the prior work penalty
Each time you work on an item in an anvil, its prior work penalty doubles. The penalty is added to the cost of every future anvil action on that item: 0, then 1, 3, 7, 15, 31 levels and so on. In Java Edition, if a single action costs 40 levels or more in survival, the anvil shows Too Expensive! and refuses the job. Bedrock Edition has no 40-level cap, but costs still rise quickly.
How to avoid Too Expensive
- Combine books first. Merge enchanted books together, then apply one combined book to your tool in a single step.
- Add the most expensive enchantments first, while the penalty is low.
- Repair with Mending instead of the anvil once your gear is complete, so the penalty stops growing.
- Reset with a grindstone. A grindstone removes enchantments and resets the penalty; see how to use a grindstone.
- Rename only once, because renaming also increases the penalty.
Anvils as weapons and traps
Anvils are affected by gravity. If you place one with nothing underneath, it falls and deals damage to any mob or player it lands on, up to 40 damage depending on the fall height. Players build anvil drop traps and use falling anvils to break armor stands and items. Anvil damage to entities is reduced by helmets.
Anvil vs smithing table vs grindstone
| Block | Main job | Costs XP? |
|---|---|---|
| Anvil | Repair, combine enchantments, rename | Yes |
| Smithing table | Upgrade diamond to netherite, apply armor trims | No |
| Grindstone | Remove enchantments, repair without keeping enchantments | No, gives some XP back |
Best anvil workflow for endgame gear
- Collect enchanted books from librarians, fishing and enchanting.
- Combine matching books into higher levels on the anvil, for example two Efficiency IV books into Efficiency V.
- Apply the most expensive book (often Mending or Sharpness V) to the bare tool first.
- Add the remaining books in as few steps as possible.
- Finish with Unbreaking III and Mending, then use XP farming to keep the tool repaired forever.
Java vs Bedrock
The anvil recipe is identical in both editions. The main difference is the Too Expensive cap: Java blocks any single action of 40 levels or more in survival, while Bedrock lets you pay any amount if you have the levels. Damage chances and repair math are the same.
Anvil FAQ
How do you make an anvil in Minecraft?
Put 3 blocks of iron in the top row, 1 iron ingot in the center and 3 iron ingots in the bottom row of a crafting table.
How much iron does an anvil take?
31 iron ingots: 27 for the three iron blocks and 4 more ingots.
How many uses does an anvil last?
About 25 uses on average, because each use has a 12 percent chance to damage it.
Can you repair an anvil?
No. Damaged anvils cannot be repaired in vanilla survival; craft a new one.
What does Too Expensive mean?
In Java, an anvil action costing 40 or more levels is blocked. Reduce the cost by combining books first or resetting with a grindstone.
Where to place your anvil
Put the anvil next to your enchanting table and grindstone so you can enchant, combine and reset in one place. Keep a chest of enchanted books, repair materials and spare iron beside it. Because anvils fall like sand, never place one on top of a torch or on an unsupported block, and do not stand under a ledge where an anvil sits. If you play with friends on a server, protect your anvil room, because a broken anvil means another 31 iron ingots. Iron golem farms near a village make replacing anvils painless, since a basic farm produces dozens of ingots per hour.
Remember that an anvil only drops as an item when mined with a pickaxe; breaking it by hand destroys it.