Overview
Flint and Steel is the game's lighter, and its most important job is a Nether portal: an obsidian frame does nothing until you strike the inside face with it. It also lights TNT into a primed state, sets a campfire or candle burning, ignites a creeper into an immediate explosion, lights a nether portal from either side, and starts ordinary fires on flammable ground — which is exactly why you should never carry it casually in a wooden base. Durability is 64 uses and one is spent per ignition, so a single lighter covers a portal, a few campfires and a season of TNT work. It is also the only reliable way to light an obsidian frame if you have not yet found blaze rods for Fire Charges. Two ingredients, one iron ingot and one flint, put it within reach on day one; flint comes from gravel at a 10% drop rate per block, which is the part that occasionally makes it annoying. Keep one in the ender chest, because a Nether portal that goes out — struck by a ghast fireball, for instance — strands you on the wrong side of it.
Lighting a nether portal, priming TNT, starting campfires and candles, and detonating creepers deliberately — the ignition source for almost everything that burns. One ingot and one flint is the cheapest capability jump in the early game.
Flint and Steel is one of the tools a player relies on, and like all tools it has a finite number of uses. It has 64 points of durability. It accepts enchantments at an enchanting table or anvil.
Every copy occupies a full inventory slot. It also turns up in chests in Ruined Portal (Overworld), Ruined Portal (Nether), and Nether Fortress. You make it with Iron Ingot and Flint.
No recipe takes it as an ingredient.
How to get it
Craft 1 from 1 Iron Ingot and 1 Flint. Flint drops from gravel at roughly a 10% chance per block, rising with Fortune, so a river bank supplies several lighters' worth quickly.
Tips
- Always keep a spare lighter or a fire charge in the Ender Chest; a ghast can extinguish your portal from the Nether side.
- Fire spreads through wood, wool and leaves; never light one inside a base built from any of them.
- A creeper lit with flint and steel explodes immediately and cannot be outrun, so use it only on purpose.
- Read Nether travel and survival before the first portal — lighting it is the easy part.
Properties
Flint and Steel lasts 64 uses before it breaks. Two worn copies can also be merged, on an anvil or a grindstone. Unbreaking III roughly quadruples the lifespan, and Mending replaces the repair cost with experience. Its enchantability of 1 decides how good the enchanting table's offers are: the higher the number, the more often a level-30 table offers the top-tier enchantment rather than a weak one. Flint and Steel does not stack — each one occupies an inventory slot of its own.
- Stack size
- 1
- Durability
- 64
- Enchantability
- 1
- Category
- Tools
Crafting recipe
Crafting Table
Shapeless recipe
Flint and Steel
Found in
Flint and Steel is in the loot tables of Ruined Portal (Overworld), Ruined Portal (Nether), and Nether Fortress.
- Ruined Portal (Overworld) — A broken nether portal frame of crumbling obsidian and blackstone, with lava, netherrack and gold blocks scattered around it, plus a chest.
- Ruined Portal (Nether) — The Nether-side counterpart, generating on cliff faces, floors and ceilings throughout every Nether biome with the same crumbling obsidian frame and loot chest.
- Nether Fortress — A dark nether brick complex of corridors, staircases, balconies and long bridges over lava.
Enchantments it can take
3 enchantments can be applied to Flint and Steel: Mending, Unbreaking, and Curse of Vanishing.
Mending and Curse of Vanishing are treasure enchantments and never appear at an enchanting table — they come from loot chests, fishing or villager trades only.
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How do you make Flint and Steel in Minecraft?
Flint and Steel is crafted from Iron Ingot and Flint.
What is the stack size of Flint and Steel?
Flint and Steel does not stack at all. Every one you carry takes an inventory slot of its own, which is the practical limit on how many you take on a trip.
How much durability does Flint and Steel have?
Flint and Steel has 64 durability.
Can Flint and Steel be enchanted?
Yes — 3 enchantments apply to it, at an enchanting table with fifteen bookshelves, or from an enchanted book on an anvil. Mending is usually the one worth hunting for, because it removes the repair cost entirely.
