Red Sandstone — Minecraft block

Overview

Red Sandstone is one of the 5 variants of Sandstone: same recipe, same hardness, same drops — only the look differs. The full write-up for the set is on the Sandstone page.

In Minecraft 1.21.4, Red Sandstone is a building block. Red Sandstone is made at a crafting table. Hardness 0.8 puts it in the middle of the pack for mining speed.

Mine it with a wooden pickaxe or better, or you get no drop at all. Broken correctly, it drops itself. It offers almost no protection from explosions (0.8 blast resistance).

A full stack holds 64. It is crafted from Red Sand. Its main value is as a crafting ingredient: 7 recipes need it, Cut Red Sandstone, Red Sandstone Slab, Red Sandstone Stairs and 4 more among them.

About the red set

How long it takes to break

Hardness 0.8 puts Red Sandstone at 4 seconds a block bare-handed, or 0.15 seconds with the right tool at netherite tier.

An iron tool takes 0.2 seconds and a diamond one 0.15, so the jump that actually matters for this block is the one to diamond.

A weaker tool still breaks it, but anything under wooden returns nothing — you spend the time and lose the drop, which is how most veins get wasted.

The Efficiency formula is level² + 1 added to tool speed — at V that is about 3 times the unenchanted rate.

* breaks the block but yields no drop
Tool	No enchantment	Efficiency III	Efficiency V
Hand *	4 s	4 s	4 s
Wooden	0.6 s	0.1 s	instant
Stone	0.3 s	0.1 s	instant
Iron	0.2 s	0.1 s	instant
Diamond	0.15 s	0.1 s	instant
Netherite	0.15 s	0.1 s	instant
Golden	0.1 s	0.1 s	instant

Properties

Red Sandstone resists blasts at 0.8, which is not enough to survive anything explosive nearby. Light does not pass through it, and it emits none of its own. One inventory slot holds 64, the normal full stack. The fastest tool for it is a pickaxe; any other kind of tool mines it no faster than a bare hand does, because the speed bonus only applies to the tool class the block is tagged for.

Transparent: No
Required tool: Wooden Pickaxe

Crafting recipe

Crafting Table

Red Sandstone

Drops

Mined with Wooden Pickaxe, Red Sandstone drops itself.

Red Sandstone

Used to craft

Red Sandstone is an ingredient in 7 recipes, producing Cut Red Sandstone, Red Sandstone Slab, Red Sandstone Stairs, Red Sandstone Wall, Smooth Red Sandstone, Chiseled Red Sandstone, and Cut Red Sandstone Slab.