Whether it’s one of the best Minecraft farms or a complex flying machine, you’re bound to come across pistons in Minecraft at some point. They are a common Redstone component that you can use in a variety of ways. It is the most reliable block to make automatic machines in the game, and that’s just scratching the surface in terms of its usefulness. But let’s not jump ahead and first learn how to make a piston in Minecraft.
Make a Piston in Minecraft (2022)
We will first cover the mechanics of a Minecraft piston, followed by its ingredients and crafting recipe. Use the table below to move to the piston crafting recipe if you are already familiar with its usage.
What is a Piston in Minecraft?
A piston in Minecraft is a moving Redstone component. It pushes the blocks, players, and mobs that are right in front of it after receiving a Redstone signal. Once placed, you can break a piston with any tool, and it always drops as an item.
What Blocks Can a Piston Push?
A piston can push all mobs and players in Minecraft. But when it comes to blocks, it has a few exceptions. You can’t use a piston to push the following blocks:
- Conduit
- Crying Obsidian
- Enchanting Table
- End Portal Frame
- Ender Chest
- Grindstone
- Jukebox
- Lodestone
- Nether Portal
- Obsidian
- Reinforced Deepslate
- Respawn Anchor
- Sculk blocks
- Mob Spawner
Other than these blocks, many unobtainable blocks like Bedrock and barrier blocks also can’t be pushed using a piston. On the other hand, there are some blocks like crops in Minecraft, which can be pushed but break right away. This mechanic is important when making a sugar cane farm in Minecraft. If you want to dig deeper, you can find the complete list of non-compatible blocks on Minecraft Wiki.
Items Required to Make a Piston
You need the following items to craft a piston in Minecraft:
- 4 Cobblestone Blocks
- 3 Planks (any wood)
- 1 Iron Ingot
- 1 Redstone Dust
- Crafting Table
Cobblestone is one of the easiest blocks to obtain in the Minecraft overworld. You simply need to mine a block of stone with a pickaxe (with or without enchantments). Meanwhile, you will need to work a little to get iron ingot because it is usually obtained by smelting iron ore in a furnace or a blast furnace. Though, you can use our guide to Minecraft ores to find iron in no time.
When it comes to wooden planks, you can place any type of wood in the crafting area to make planks. The three planks in the recipe of the piston don’t even have to be the same type and can be made out of different kinds of wood. The piston works the same way irrespective of which overworld and Nether wood it is made out of.
Minecraft Piston Crafting Recipe
After collecting all the required ingredients, you just have to combine them on a crafting table to create a piston in Minecraft. Here’s how to go about it:
1. First, fill up the topmost row of the crafting area with wooden planks. The planks can be made out of any type of wood.
2. Then, put cobblestone blocks in the side columns of the middle and bottommost rows, as shown in the diagram here.
3. Finally, place an iron ingot in the middle cell of the middle row of the crafting table. Then, put Redstone dust in the cell beneath it. Just like that, you now have a ready-to-use piston. You simply need to pull the item in your inventory to place it anywhere you like.
How to Use a Piston in Minecraft
Using a piston in Minecrafty is simple. You just need to place it next to the entity you want to push and then activate it with the help of any Redstone component. That said, let’s try activating a piston using a lever.
1. First, place down a solid pushable block on any surface.
2. Then, while looking behind that placed block, place the piston. Its wooden part should be facing into the block you want to push.
3. Once the piston is in place, put a lever next to the piston or attach the lever to its back. But don’t attach the lever to the side or top of the piston, as it will break when the piston moves.
4. Finally, right-click or use the secondary action key on the lever to activate it. Doing so will activate the piston and make it push the block right in front of it.
Please note that when you turn off the lever, the piston will pull itself back, leaving the block at its new spot. If you want it to pull the block instead of only pushing it, you should make a sticky piston in Minecraft instead.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you make sticky pistons?
To make a sticky piston, you just have to combine a slime ball with a regular piston on a crafting table.
Can pistons move obsidian?
A piston can’t push or pull obsidian.
What if there is more than one block in front of the piston?
If the block next to the main block is pushable, then the piston will end up pushing them both. But if that block is not pushable, the piston won’t work.
Can a piston push lava or water?
Interestingly, due to a weird mechanic, the piston just pushes the fire, water, and lava source blocks out of existence. In a way, it blocks any liquid source block in front of it.
Make and Use a Piston in Minecraft
Whether you want to push mobs to a specific place to move some blocks, you are now ready with the crafting recipe of a piston. But before you make plans to use it, make sure to craft a Redstone torch to power it. You can even activate it from a faraway distance if you know how to use Redstone dust in Minecraft and can create a long circuit using Redstone repeaters leading to the piston. With that said, what do you plan on pushing with pistons in Minecraft? Tell us in the comments below!
