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How to make an iron golem in Minecraft

An iron golem in a village.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

One of the joys that only a game as open as Minecraft can provide is a sense of pure wonder and discovery. Each new seed creates a randomly generated wonderland of different biomes, creatures, materials, and secrets. As you explore, you're likely to stumble upon a village that was built without your input. Home to peaceful villagers, villages would normally be easy pickings for you, or even the natural enemies that appear at night, to completely devastate. However, they have a secret weapon. Iron golems are passive by default, but they patrol villages and will attack anyone, or anything, that attacks them or a villager they're protecting. These giant hunks of metal are tough customers, even for players with enchanted gear. With a few tips and tricks, there actually is a way to spawn an iron golem for yourself.

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Difficulty

Moderate

Duration

30 minutes

What You Need

  • Stone pickaxe or better

  • Crafting table

  • Cobblestone

  • Iron Ore

  • Pumpkin

An iron golem in a village.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

How to make an iron golem

Making an iron golem will take a good deal of effort, but the end result is a very worthy ally. With one of your own, you can leave them to watch over your own base while you're away, or have them protect a nearby village. Here's how to spawn your very own iron golem.

Step 1: Spawn or load up a survival world in Minecraft.

Step 2: Collect wood and stone to craft a stone pickaxe, or any pickaxe at or above that level.

Step 3: Craft a Crafting Table and either put it in your base or keep it with you.

Step 4: Collect eight cobblestones and use them with the Crafting Table to make a furnace.

Step 5: Go mine Iron Ore until you have 36 or more raw iron ore.

A bunch of Iron Ore in a cave.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Step 6: Smelt all your raw iron ore into iron ingots.

Turning iron ingots into a block.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Step 7: Full up every square in the Crafting Table with iron ingots to create iron blocks. It takes nine ingots to create one block, and all 36 ingots will give you four blocks.

Step 8: Find or grow a pumpkin and collect one.

Step 9: Turn the pumpkin into a Jack-o'-Lantern by using sheers on it and then combining it with a torch in your crafting menu.

Step 10: Find the area you want to build your iron golem and place your first two iron blocks vertically on the ground.

Step 11: Place the remaining two iron blocks on either side of the top block to make a T shape.

Building an iron golem in a village.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Step 12: Finally, place the Jack-o'-Lantern on the very top to be the "head" of your iron golem.

Step 13: Once all the pieces are in place, as long as the Jack-o'-Lantern is the final item placed, the iron golem will spawn.

Once you've created your own iron golem, unlike ones in the wild, they will never attack you. Even if you hit it accidentally, or on purpose, they won't become aggressive toward you and are always tame. Additionally, if you want to know how to heal an iron golem, all you need to do is use an iron ingot on them to restore some health.

Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox has been a writer at Digital Trends for over five years and has no plans of stopping. He covers all things…
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