How to Make Smooth Stone in Minecraft
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Smooth stone is one of the cleanest building blocks in the game. It has a pale gray face with a thin border, and it looks great in floors, paths, and modern builds. It is also a required part of the blast furnace. Yet many players get stuck, since you cannot craft it on a crafting table. If you want to know how to make smooth stone in minecraft, the answer is simple: smelt cobblestone into stone, then smelt that stone a second time.
This guide walks through every step. It covers the materials, the furnace recipe, the best fuels, faster methods, and what to do with your new blocks. A few tables make the numbers easy to check.
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Quick Answer
- Mine cobblestone with a pickaxe.
- Smelt the cobblestone in a furnace to get stone.
- Smelt the stone in a furnace again to get smooth stone.
Each smelt takes 10 seconds per block. One cobblestone becomes one smooth stone after two smelts and 20 seconds of furnace time.
What Is Smooth Stone?
Smooth stone is a solid building block made by heating regular stone. It joined the game as an item players could obtain in the Village and Pillage update, version 1.14. Before that, its texture appeared only on double stone slabs.
It is a little tougher to break than regular stone, and it resists explosions about as well. You need a pickaxe to collect it. If you break it by hand or with the wrong tool, it drops nothing.
Property Smooth Stone Type Solid building block Tool needed Any pickaxe Stack size 64 Hardness 2 Blast resistance 6 Flammable No Renewable Yes How to obtain Smelt stone in a furnace What You Need
- A pickaxe. Wooden or better.
- A furnace. Crafted from eight cobblestone.
- Cobblestone. One per smooth stone you want.
- Fuel. Coal, charcoal, wood, or another burnable item.
That is all. You can make your first batch within minutes of starting a new world.
Step 1: Get Cobblestone
Stone is everywhere underground and on mountain sides. When you mine stone with a normal pickaxe, it drops cobblestone.
- Craft a wooden pickaxe from three planks and two sticks.
- Find gray stone. Dig down a few blocks or look at a cliff face.
- Mine as much as you need. Remember to save eight for the furnace.
You can also build a cobblestone generator. Place a water source and a lava source so the flows meet. Where they touch, cobblestone forms again and again. This gives you an endless supply without digging tunnels.
Step 2: Craft a Furnace
- Open a crafting table.
- Place cobblestone in every slot around the edge of the 3 by 3 grid. Leave the center empty.
- Take the furnace and place it on the ground.
A furnace can also be made from blackstone or cobbled deepslate in the same pattern.
Step 3: Smelt Cobblestone Into Stone
- Right-click the furnace, or press the use button on your platform.
- Put cobblestone in the top slot.
- Put fuel in the bottom slot.
- Wait for the arrow to fill. Each block takes 10 seconds.
- Collect the stone from the slot on the right.
Step 4: Smelt Stone Into Smooth Stone
- Put the stone back in the top slot of the furnace.
- Add more fuel if needed.
- Wait 10 seconds per block.
- Collect your smooth stone.
That is the whole smooth stone minecraft recipe. Two smelts, one furnace, and a bit of fuel.
The Full Process at a Glance
Stage Input Station Output Time per Block 1 Stone in the world Pickaxe Cobblestone A few seconds 2 Cobblestone Furnace Stone 10 seconds 3 Stone Furnace Smooth stone 10 seconds How Much Fuel Do You Need?
Fuel is the only real cost when you work out how to make smooth stone in minecraft at scale. Each smooth stone needs two smelts. Plan your fuel with this table.
Fuel Items Smelted per Unit Smooth Stone per Unit, Starting From Cobblestone Lava bucket 100 50 Block of coal 80 40 Dried kelp block 20 10 Blaze rod 12 6 Coal or charcoal 8 4 Log or planks 1.5 0.75 Stick 0.5 0.25 A full stack of 64 smooth stone takes 128 smelts. That equals 16 pieces of coal, or two lava buckets with some burn time wasted on the second.
Charcoal is a good choice early on. Smelt logs to make it, and you never need to find a coal vein. A lava bucket is the best value later. The empty bucket stays in the fuel slot, so you get it back.
Can You Use a Blast Furnace or Smoker?
No. A blast furnace only smelts ores, raw metals, and metal tools and armor. A smoker only cooks food. Neither accepts cobblestone or stone. You must use a regular furnace.
This catches many players off guard, since the blast furnace recipe itself needs smooth stone.
Faster Ways to Make Smooth Stone
Once you understand how to make smooth stone, the next goal is speed. These methods cut the time.
Use a Silk Touch Pickaxe
A pickaxe with the Silk Touch enchantment mines stone as stone, not cobblestone. That lets you skip the first smelt. You save half the fuel and half the time.
Run Several Furnaces
Furnaces work at the same time. Two furnaces finish a batch in half the time. A simple setup uses one furnace to turn cobblestone into stone and a second to turn stone into smooth stone.
Chain Furnaces With Hoppers
Automate the two steps with hoppers.
- Place a chest on top of a hopper that feeds into the top of furnace one. Fill the chest with cobblestone.
- Place a hopper under furnace one that feeds into the top of furnace two.
- Place a hopper under furnace two that leads into a collection chest.
- Feed fuel into the side of each furnace with another hopper and chest.
Load it, walk away, and come back to finished blocks.
Build a Super Smelter
For big projects, players build a row of furnaces fed by hopper minecarts. These designs smelt thousands of blocks an hour. Fuel them with a bamboo or kelp farm for a fully automatic system.
Large smelters with many hoppers and minecarts can slow the game on some computers. If your world starts to stutter on Java Edition, this guide on how to allocate more RAM to Minecraft can help it run more smoothly.
Can You Find Smooth Stone Without Smelting?
Yes, in small amounts. Some village buildings include smooth stone in their structure. You can mine these blocks with a pickaxe. Villages also hold smooth stone slabs in places. Still, these sources are tiny. Smelting is the practical way to get more than a few blocks.
What Smooth Stone Is Used For
Blast Furnace
The blast furnace smelts ores twice as fast as a regular furnace. Its recipe needs:
- 5 iron ingots
- 1 furnace
- 3 smooth stone
Place the iron ingots across the top row and down the sides of the middle row. Put the furnace in the center. Fill the bottom row with smooth stone.
Smooth Stone Slabs
Place three smooth stone in a row on a crafting table to make six slabs. A stonecutter turns one block into two slabs with no waste of time. These slabs are great for floors, roofs, counters, and paths.
Armor Stand
An armor stand needs six sticks and one smooth stone slab. Place the slab in the bottom middle slot.
Building and Decoration
Smooth stone has a neat, tiled look. Builders use it for:
- Modern houses and city builds
- Kitchen counters and bathroom floors
- Sidewalks, plazas, and roads
- Laboratory and factory interiors
- Borders around gardens and pools
- Trim that contrasts with stone bricks or concrete
It pairs well with white concrete, quartz, light gray wool, andesite, and dark woods.
Smooth Stone vs. Stone vs. Cobblestone
Feature Cobblestone Stone Smooth Stone How to get it Mine stone Smelt cobblestone, or mine with Silk Touch Smelt stone Look Rough and bumpy Plain gray Pale gray with a border Hardness 2 1.5 2 Stairs available Yes Yes No Slabs available Yes Yes Yes Walls available Yes No No Key recipes Furnace, tools, many more Stone bricks, repeater, comparator Blast furnace, armor stand slab Smooth stone has slabs but no stairs or walls. If you need those shapes in a similar color, use stone or andesite.
A First-Day Plan for New Players
New players often ask how to make smooth stone in minecraft on their first day, since they want a blast furnace early. Here is a simple order of steps.
- Punch a tree and craft planks, sticks, and a crafting table.
- Craft a wooden pickaxe and mine about 20 cobblestone.
- Upgrade to a stone pickaxe and craft a furnace.
- Smelt a few logs into charcoal for fuel.
- Smelt three cobblestone into stone, then smelt that stone again.
- Mine iron ore, smelt five ingots, and craft the blast furnace.
The whole plan takes about one in-game day. After that, ore smelting runs twice as fast for the rest of your world.
Smelting While You Explore
A furnace keeps working when you walk away, as long as the area stays loaded. Fill it before you go mining nearby, and collect the results when you return. A furnace holds one stack in the input slot, so a single load can produce 64 blocks. If you plan a long trip far from your base, the furnace will pause and pick up where it left off when you come back.
Common Mistakes
Most problems with how to make smooth stone in minecraft come from one of these slips.
- Trying to craft it. No crafting table recipe exists. It must be smelted.
- Smelting only once. One smelt gives stone. You need a second smelt.
- Using a blast furnace. It will not accept stone.
- Mining it by hand. You get nothing. Use a pickaxe.
- Confusing it with polished blocks. Polished andesite, diorite, and granite are different blocks made on a crafting table.
- Using deepslate. Cobbled deepslate smelts into deepslate, which cannot become smooth stone.
- Running out of fuel. Count two smelts per block before you start.
Getting It in Creative Mode or With Commands
In Creative mode, open the inventory and search for “smooth stone.” It sits with the other building blocks.
With cheats turned on, use this command to get a full stack:
/give @p smooth_stone 64Does the Method Change by Edition?
No. The guide on how to make smooth stone is the same in Java Edition and Bedrock Edition, on PC, consoles, and mobile. Only the controls differ.
Platform Open Furnace PC Right-click PlayStation L2 Xbox LT Nintendo Switch ZL Mobile Tap the furnace If you search for how to make smooth stone on any edition, the two-smelt method applies.
Building Tips
- Mix textures. Break up large smooth stone walls with stone bricks or andesite so they do not look flat.
- Use slabs for detail. Half-height floors and layered roofs add depth.
- Try double slabs. Two smooth stone slabs stacked together make a full block with a seam in the middle, which gives a different look from the full block.
- Light it well. The pale surface looks best with lanterns or hidden light sources.
- Plan your count. Mark out the area and count blocks before you smelt.
How Many Blocks Do You Need?
Project Smooth Stone Needed Coal Needed, Starting From Cobblestone One blast furnace 3 1 One armor stand 3, which makes 6 slabs 1 A 9 by 9 floor 81 21 One full stack 64 16 A double chest full 3,456 864 Coal counts are rounded up, since one coal smelts eight items.
Earning Experience
Smelting gives a small amount of experience. Each cobblestone or stone you smelt stores 0.1 experience points in the furnace. You collect them when you take the items out by hand. It is not a fast way to level up, but a large batch adds up.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you craft smooth stone on a crafting table? No. You can only get it by smelting stone.
How long does it take? Twenty seconds of furnace time per block when you start from cobblestone, or ten seconds when you start from stone.
What is the fastest way to learn how to make smooth stone in minecraft for a large build? Mine stone with Silk Touch to skip a step, and run a row of furnaces fed by hoppers.
Can villagers trade it? It is not a standard trade item. Mason villagers buy and sell other stone products.
Is smooth stone stronger than stone? It takes slightly longer to mine. Both resist blasts equally.
Does smooth stone have stairs? No. Only slabs exist.
Can I turn smooth stone back into stone? No. The change is one way.
What is smooth stone minecraft players use most for? The blast furnace recipe and clean, modern builds.
Can I use any pickaxe? Yes. Even a wooden pickaxe collects it.
Final Thoughts
Now you know how to make smooth stone in minecraft. Mine cobblestone, smelt it into stone, and smelt it once more. Use coal, charcoal, or a lava bucket for fuel, and remember that only a regular furnace will do the job.
From there, the block opens up useful recipes and sharp-looking builds. Craft a blast furnace to speed up your ore smelting, cut slabs for floors and roofs, and use the pale gray face to give your base a clean finish. With a Silk Touch pickaxe and a few linked furnaces, you can turn out stacks in no time. The next time a friend asks how to make smooth stone in minecraft, you can show them the two-step smelt and a tidy smooth stone minecraft floor to prove it.
Key Takeaways
- The answer to how to make smooth stone in minecraft is two smelts: cobblestone to stone, then stone to smooth stone.
- You must use a regular furnace. Blast furnaces and smokers do not work.
- Each smelt takes 10 seconds, and one coal makes four smooth stone from cobblestone.
- A Silk Touch pickaxe mines stone directly and cuts the work in half.
- Smooth stone is needed for the blast furnace and for smooth stone slabs, which make armor stands.
- It has slabs but no stairs or walls, and it must be mined with a pickaxe.
- Hopper-fed furnaces automate the process for large builds.
