Minecraft: How to Craft a Brush & What You Can Use it For

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Learn how to make this specialized Minecraft tool

Co-authored by Zac Churchill and Hannah Dillon

Last Updated: December 29, 2024 Fact Checked

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How to Make a Brush

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Brush Uses

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Is the Brush useful?

Are you trying to make a Brush in Minecraft, but you're not sure how? If so, keep reading this article! The Brush is an archaeology tool used to slowly remove items from suspicious blocks. It can also be used to get armadillo scutes from armadillos. In this guide, we'll teach you how to craft a Brush and go over how to use it.

How to Make & Use Brushes in Minecraft

To craft a brush, combine a Feather, Copper Ingot, and Stick. You can also combine damaged Brushes to repair their durability. Brushes are used on suspicious blocks to reveal items or on armadillos to get armadillo scutes.

Section 1 of 3:

How to Make a Brush

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1
Make a new Brush. To make a new Brush, you'll need one Feather, one Copper Ingot, and one Stick. Place the Copper Ingot in the middle of the crafting grid, then place the Stick underneath it and the Feather above it.^{[1]
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- Feathers can be obtained by killing chickens and parrots, taking from foxes, as chest loot from Shipwreck and Village chests, and as morning gifts from tamed cats.^{[2]
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- Copper Ingots can be crafted from blocks of Copper, smelted from Raw Copper, or as mob loot from a Drowned.^{[3]
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- Sticks can be obtained by combining two planks or bamboo, as a junk item when fishing, gathered from bushes, as mob loot from Witches, or as chest loot from the Desert Well or Village.^{[4]
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Place your damaged Brush in the middle of the crafting grid, then place a second damaged Brush to the left of it. The new Brush's durability will be the sum of the remaining durability of the Brushes used to craft it, plus 5%.

Section 2 of 3:

Brush Uses

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Suspicious blocks Continuously using the Brush on a suspicious block will slowly reveal an item.^{[5]
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Research source} It takes about 5 seconds to use a Brush to reveal the item inside of a suspicious block. After Brushing, the suspicious block will turn into sand or gravel, and the Brush will lose 1 durability point.
- Using the Brush on any other block will display the Brushing animation and breaking particles, but neither the Brush nor the block will be damaged.
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Armadillo scutes If a Brush is used on an armadillo, it will drop an armadillo scute. Doing this uses 13 points of durability on a Brush. Since a Brush only has 64 durability points, you can use one Brush 4 times to get armadillo scutes.
- Since armadillos drop scutes about every minute without player intervention, this may be a waste of Brush durability (depending on how quickly you need scutes).^{[6]
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Section 3 of 3:

Is the Brush useful?

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Since armadillos will drop scutes even without the player using a Brush, it really only is necessary for one thing. As such, this tool is very specialized, and isn't extremely useful for most players. Focus on making more useful tools (such as an Axe) before worrying about making a Brush.