6 Best Uses of Iron Ingots in Minecraft

Out of all the items and ingredients in Minecraft, iron ingots are one of if not the most important. They are a part of various crafting recipes, a great source of emeralds, and also can decorate your armor in a unique way. If you have learned how to make iron ingots in Minecraft, you must be itching to put them to good use. Well, allow us to help as we show you the best uses of iron ingots in Minecraft!

1. Crafting Ingredient

Iron ingots can serve as an invaluable crafting ingredient for a lot of items in Minecraft. As such, we always suggest keeping them handy. Iron ingots are used to make the following items:

• Activator rail
• Anvil
• Blast furnace
• Block of iron
• Bucket
• Cauldron
• Chains
• Compass
• Crafter
• Crossbow
• Detector rail
• Flint and steel
• Heavy weighted pressure plate
• Hopper
• Iron trapdoor
• Iron axe
• Iron bars
• Iron boots
• Iron chestplate
• Iron door
• Iron helmet
• Iron hoe
• Iron legginings
• Iron nugget
• Iron pickaxe
• Iron shovel
• Iron sword
• Minecart
• Piston
• Rails
• Shears
• Shield
• Smithing table
• Stonecutter
• Tripwire hook

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2. Trading with the “Smith” Villagers

Iron ingots are items all “smith” villagers buy in exchange for emeralds. Those include the weaponsmith, toolsmith, and the armorer. On the Bedrock edition, all of these Minecraft villager jobs will buy three iron ingots for an emerald at the apprentice level.

Meanwhile on Minecraft Java, the apprentice-level toolsmith and weaponsmith will always buy four iron ingots for an emerald and the armorer has a 50% chance of offering this trade.

This is especially useful if you have built an iron farm, so it’s considered one of the best villager trades for getting emeralds in Minecraft.

3. Repairing Iron Gear

Among the best uses of iron ingots in Minecraft we also have the aspect of repairing. This item can mend all iron gear items, including weapons, tools, and armor. Combine a damaged tool with the ingot in the anvil to repair it partially or fully. This also requires XP levels.

4. Powering Beacons

Minecraft Iron ingots are one of the precious items available in the game. That means they can be used to enable power from a Minecraft beacon. To begin, interact with the beacon, select the power you want, and place the iron ingot in the cell on the bottom. Click on the green checkmark button next to it and you have activated a beacon.

5. Armor Trim Color

Ever since Minecraft 1.20 introduced armor trims, iron ingots have had a special use related to them. You may combine an iron ingot with the armor piece and the armor trim in the smithing table to add a gray pattern in a specific shape to the armor. If you’re adding a gray pattern onto the iron armor, then the pattern will appear even darker.

6. Healing Iron Golems

Finally, the last entry on our list of best uses of iron ingots in Minecraft is healing iron golems. These Minecraft mobs are according to lore made completely out of iron and when they take damage and start showing cracks, you can use an iron ingot on them to replenish their health. Every ingot will restore 25 HP or 12.5 hearts.

With that said, those were the best uses of iron ingots in Minecraft. As you can assume, they are fairly diverse and these items are therefore needed throughout the entire playthrough. So which are you going to use your iron ingot in Minecraft? Let us know in the comments below!