Tools · Basics · 1.21

How to Make Flint and Steel

One iron, one flint, and you carry fire in your pocket. Flint and steel is the key to the Nether, the fuse on your TNT, and the quickest campfire light there is.

The recipe

Iron ingot top-left, flint one slot diagonally below it.

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What it lights

Nether portals

Right-click inside a 4x5 obsidian frame to open the portal.

TNT

Lights TNT directly, starting the fuse instantly.

Campfires

Relights a campfire and lights candles.

Flammable blocks

Sets fire to wood, wool, leaves and other burnables.

Getting the flint

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Flint drops from gravel, about one in ten blocks. Dig with a Fortune shovel to raise the odds, all the way to a guaranteed drop at Fortune III. Iron you smelt at a furnace.

Good to know

64

uses before it breaks (more with Unbreaking)

A fire charge is the throwable, dispenser-friendly one-use alternative.

Quick answers

What is the recipe?

One iron ingot in the top-left slot and one flint in the slot diagonally below-right of it. That makes one flint and steel.

Where do I get flint?

Break gravel. About one in ten gravel blocks drops flint, and a Fortune shovel raises the odds, up to guaranteed at Fortune III.

What can it light?

Nether portals, TNT, campfires, candles, and any flammable block such as wood, wool or leaves.

How many uses does it have?

64. Each ignite costs one durability. Unbreaking and Mending make it last far longer.

How do I light a nether portal?

Build a frame of obsidian (a 4 wide by 5 tall rectangle works) and right-click the inside with flint and steel.

Flint and steel or fire charge?

Flint and steel is reusable and used up close. A fire charge is a single-use igniter you can throw or load into a dispenser.

Smelt the iron at a furnace, then look up flint, gravel and flint and steel on the items database or grab the recipe on Astroworld crafting.