How to auto-craft in Minecraft

Minecraft's upcoming 1.21 update is still more than a few months away in all likelihood, but players can, fortunately, try out some of its features via Java Edition snapshots and Bedrock Edition previews. One of the update's earliest and most exciting accessible features is the new crafter block, which can automatically craft items defined by players when it is supplied with a redstone signal.

Although automation has existed in vanilla Minecraft for some time, the crafter introduces a new dimension to it by allowing you to craft items without direct input. This undoubtedly expands on what is possible for redstone machinery and in-game farms.

This article will explain how to automatically craft with the crafter block in Minecraft.

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How to auto-craft with the crafter block in Minecraft 1.21

The crafting recipe for the crafter block in Minecraft 1.21 (Image via Mojang)

Before getting started, you need to be playing on one of the latest snapshot/preview betas and have Minecraft 1.21 features enabled in your Experimental Features world setting. Once in the game, you need to craft a crafter block, which requires a crafting table, five iron ingots, two pieces of redstone dust, and a dropper block.

Once you have a crafter block, you can perform the following steps to create a basic auto-crafting apparatus in Minecraft:

1. Place the crafter block and open its interface by interacting with it.
2. Insert materials to craft an item like you would in a crafting table, such as diamonds and sticks for a diamond sword for example. You can also click all the unused slots to lock them and prevent the crafter from making other items by accident.
3. With the crafter block stocked up, connect it to an active redstone signal source. When the signal reaches the crafter, it will pop out the crafted item.

A crafter creating diamond swords while connected to a basic redstone clock (Image via Mojang)

Since a crafter block will only make one block or item each time it receives a redstone signal, you can use a block like a button or lever to activate it, but this may not cover the full scope of automation in Minecraft. As an alternative, it may be a good idea to set up a simple redstone clock to make the process truly automatic.

This can be accomplished by performing the following steps:

1. Craft four redstone repeaters and set them into a cross-like formation but with an empty space in the middle. Ensure that the repeaters are all pointing to each other in a clockwise fashion.
2. Connect the four repeaters together with redstone dust, then connect the clock to the crafter block with redstone dust as well. Set the repeaters to their maximum setting where the two redstone torches and the block are as far apart as possible.
3. Place a redstone torch in the middle of all four repeaters, then break it. A redstone signal will circulate through the clock before activating the crafter block, creating an automatic activation loop.

Be sure to set the crafting recipe appropriately within the crafter block or it may make other items (Image via Mojang)

There are many other ways to automate the crafter block in Minecraft, but using a basic redstone clock is one of the simpler methods available. Those with redstone device knowledge may want to do some experimenting to see what they come up with, especially because the crafter can operate alongside the likes of hoppers and droppers to intake resources and deposit crafted items/blocks.