How to Make a Chiseled Bookshelf Secret Door in Minecraft 1.20

It’s time to upgrade your Minecraft house because secret doors just got an update. You can now realize your spy movie dreams and create a hidden door that opens if you interact with books. And that’s all thanks to the new chiseled bookshelves that have been added in Minecraft 1.20. They are a one-of-a-kind storage option that also works with Redstone components. But one won’t be able to appreciate the chiseled bookshelf’s capabilities without a prime example. So, here’s how to make a chiseled bookshelf secret door in Minecraft.

Chiseled Bookshelf Secret Door in Minecraft (Guide)

We will first go over the functioning and Redstone mechanics of the chiseled bookshelf. If you are already familiar with the same, you can use the table below to skip to the secret door tutorial.

How Does a Chiseled Bookshelf in Minecraft Work

A chiseled bookshelf is a unique storage block in Minecraft where you can keep your books, enchanted books, and book & quill. Unlike chests, the chiseled bookshelf doesn’t have a dedicated UI. Instead, you just have to look at it and place the book-based item on one of its six slots. Similarly, you can take your placed item back by using the secondary action key on any slot of the chiseled bookshelf.

Moreover, just like other storage blocks, the chiseled bookshelves also send Redstone signals. But instead of the number of items in it, the signal’s strength for a chiseled bookshelf depends upon the slot you interact with.

Redstone Signals from Each Book Slot

The strength of the Redstone signal emitted from the chiseled bookshelf changes with every slot. The signal from the top left slot (light-blue book) has the weakest strength while the bottom right slot (dark-blue book) has the highest strength. As you might expect, the signal strength increases as you go from left to right and top to bottom in the slots of a chiseled bookshelf.

The strength of each signal determines how far it can travel in a Redstone circuit. You can witness the same using randomly filled chiseled bookshelf and Redstone comparator machines, just like the above screenshot. This is the mechanic we will use to build a secret door with a chiseled bookshelf.

Items Required to Make Chiseled Bookshelf Secret Door

You need the following items to make a chiseled bookshelf secret door in Minecraft:

• 12 Chiseled Bookshelves
• 1 Comparator
• 8 Redstone Dust
• 1 Sticky Piston

You can use the linked guides to find the crafting recipe and additional details about each of these items. All of them are common Redstone components that you can obtain early in your game.

How to Make a Chiseled Bookshelf Secret Door in Minecraft

Keeping your ease in mind, we have divided our tutorial into separate sections. Each of them focuses on a different aspect of the secret door mechanism to help avoid any errors.

Make the Basic Structure

Follow these steps to create the main area of the chiseled bookshelf secret door in Minecraft:

1. First, dig a long tunnel in the ground, which will lead to your secret room. Make sure to safeguard its landing area using either water or slime blocks.

2. Then, place a sticky piston one block away from the tunnel. This piston should be facing toward the tunnel, and there should be a block between the two.

3. Then, create a row of chiseled bookshelves in the gap between the tunnel and the sticky piston.

4. We are going for a mostly filled bookshelf secret door. So after placing the chiseled bookshelves, fill them completely with bookish items. However, you can leave a few slots empty to create confusion. But make sure to leave the bottom left chiseled bookshelf completely empty for now.

Redstone Mechanic for Secret Door

Follow these steps to set up the secret door’s Redstone mechanics:

1. First, place a Redstone comparator behind the empty chiseled bookshelf. The comparator’s side with two pins should be towards the chiseled bookshelf.

2. Then, place two pieces of Redstone dust followed by a Redstone repeater next to the comparator. The repeater’s moveable pin should be towards the comparator.

3. Finally, use Redstone dust to create a loop and connect the Repeater to the sticky piston.

How Chiseled BookShelf Secret Door Works (Explained)

Mathematically, we can assign the following strength values to each slot of the bookshelf (going L to R and T to B):

• Slot A: 2
• Slot B: 3
• Slot C: 4
• Slot D: 5
• Slot E: 6
• Slot F: 7

Each number indicates the amount of Redstone dust that slot powers after traveling through the comparator. Now, if you want slot C to trigger the sticky piston, you need to place the Redstone repeater after three pieces of Redstone dust. When you do so, triggering slots A and B will do nothing. But, triggering slots C, D, E and F will activate the piston.

With that in mind, it’s always best to use the corner slots to activate or deactivate a secret door. Otherwise, the invader will have more than one way to trigger the Redstone system.

How to Open and Close Chiseled Bookshelf Secret Door

Follow these steps to learn how to use the secret door:

1. First, go to the empty chiseled bookshelf and place a book in the top left slot. This will immediately trigger the Redstone mechanic and open the secret door. Removing the book from that slot while the door is closed also triggers it.

2. Then fill up the rest of the chiseled bookshelf as per your preferences. Interacting with any of the other slots will close the secret door. Moreover, while the door is closed, interacting with the other slots does nothing.

Note: While it will be interesting to create a secret door made out of the chiseled bookshelf, it is, unfortunately, not possible to push it using any piston. So, the chiseled bookshelf can only act as a trigger instead of the secret door.

Make a Chiseled Bookshelf Secret Door in Minecraft Today

And just like that, you are now ready to create your own secret library door in Minecraft. Our version is easy enough to fit into almost all types of Minecraft houses. But we are more excited to see how you modify and create it in your creative way. Who knows, your idea might make it into the best Minecraft maps one day. Having said that, how do you think the chiseled bookshelves can be improved? Share your suggestions in the comments below!