What is a Silk Touch Axe Good For?
A Silk Touch axe in Minecraft is a versatile tool, primarily valued for its ability to preserve blocks when mined, instead of dropping them as their raw materials. Unlike other enchantments that focus on increasing drops or efficiency, Silk Touch is about collecting specific blocks in their original state. This opens up a range of possibilities, especially for builders, decorators, and resource collectors. In essence, a Silk Touch axe allows you to relocate blocks that are otherwise destroyed when mined normally. While not as universally useful as a Silk Touch pickaxe, it carves out its own niche with unique advantages.
Key Uses of a Silk Touch Axe
1. Harvesting Unique Blocks
One of the primary uses of a Silk Touch axe is gathering blocks that cannot be obtained in their intact form without the enchantment. These include:
- Melons: Instead of breaking into melon slices, a Silk Touch axe allows you to harvest whole melon blocks, perfect for trading or setting up efficient melon farms.
- Bookshelves: When raiding villages or dismantling libraries, a Silk Touch axe lets you mine bookshelves whole, saving you the trouble of crafting them from planks and books.
- Leaves: The most common use for a silk touch axe is collecting leaf blocks. This allows for easy relocation of leaves when building or decorating. They also don’t decay when silk touched, meaning you can place them anywhere.
- Beehives and Bee Nests: Moving bees and their homes is much safer with a Silk Touch axe. This way you can transfer the whole block, with the bees still inside, without angering the inhabitants.
- Glass: When mined without Silk Touch, glass simply breaks and drops nothing. Silk Touch allows you to pick it up again, making it easily reusable.
- Ice: Need ice blocks for a build or to create a cool effect? A Silk Touch axe allows you to harvest ice from frozen areas without it turning into water.
- Ender Chests: A Silk Touch axe, like other tools with the enchantment, is able to pick up an Ender Chest as a block, rather than breaking it into obsidian.
2. Efficient Melon Farming
While Fortune enchantments can yield more melon slices, a Silk Touch axe is best for gathering whole melon blocks. This is highly efficient when setting up a melon farm or transporting large quantities of melons for trading. You can quickly harvest and replant whole blocks, streamlining the process.
3. Inventory Management
In certain scenarios, a Silk Touch axe can contribute to better inventory management. For example, collecting entire bookshelves instead of individual books can save inventory slots on a long adventure. The same is true for any block that has a specific drop or breaks entirely when not mined with Silk Touch.
4. Decoration and Building
The ability to collect certain blocks intact provides builders with greater flexibility. You can move bee nests to a more safe area. You can also use leaf blocks and ice to bring more diverse building options to your world.
When a Silk Touch Axe Isn’t Ideal
Despite its advantages, a Silk Touch axe isn’t always the best option.
- Wood Harvesting: For basic wood gathering, a regular axe is sufficient, as axes naturally drop the wood block itself.
- Combat: If your primary use for an axe is combat, enchantments like Sharpness, Smite, or Bane of Arthropods are more effective than Silk Touch.
Comparing Silk Touch Axe to Other Options
- Silk Touch vs. Fortune: Fortune increases the number of item drops from mined blocks, whereas Silk Touch retrieves the block itself. For an axe, this means more crops. These are incompatible enchantments.
- Silk Touch Axe vs. Silk Touch Pickaxe: Both have the Silk Touch enchantment, but pickaxes are essential for mining ores whole, which axes can not do. In terms of blocks, an axe is more suitable for leaves, melons, bookshelves, and other organic blocks. Pickaxes are for hard stone blocks.
- Silk Touch Axe vs. Normal Axe: A normal axe is perfect for wood, but a Silk Touch axe shines when you need to collect specific blocks, like melon, leaf and bookshelves.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Can a silk touch axe break glass?
Yes, a Silk Touch axe can break glass and collect it as an intact block. Without Silk Touch, glass will shatter, leaving you with nothing.
2. Is silk touch bad on an axe?
No, Silk Touch is not bad on an axe, but its usefulness is situational. It shines when you need to harvest blocks whole rather than their raw materials. If you are primarily using it for wood then it is largely useless.
3. Is Silk Touch on an axe worth it?
Yes, the Silk Touch enchantment on an axe is worth it for those who wish to harvest melons, bookshelves, ice, leaves, beehives, and other unique blocks in their complete form.
4. What doesn’t work with Silk Touch?
Silk Touch doesn’t work on grass, fern, vines, large ferns, tall grass, and sea grass. It also doesn’t allow you to collect monster spawners.
5. Can you mix Fortune and Silk Touch on an axe?
No, Fortune and Silk Touch are mutually exclusive enchantments. You cannot have both on the same axe.
6. Is Fortune worth putting on an axe?
Yes, Fortune is worth putting on an axe if you need more crops when harvesting items like melons. However, Silk Touch is better for acquiring the block itself.
7. Can you silk touch a beehive?
Yes, a Silk Touch axe or any tool with the Silk Touch enchantment can be used to pick up a beehive (bee nest) with any bees still inside.
8. Why can’t I put silk touch on my pickaxe?
You can put Silk Touch on a pickaxe. However, if you are finding that you can’t, it is because you are attempting to put both Fortune and Silk Touch on the same pickaxe. As previously mentioned, these are incompatible enchantments.
9. Can I put silk touch on a hoe?
Yes, you can put Silk Touch on a hoe, enabling it to pick up blocks as whole blocks instead of their raw materials.
10. Is there a Silk Touch 3?
No, the maximum level for the Silk Touch enchantment is level 1 (Silk Touch I). There is no Silk Touch II or III.
11. Can you silk touch a spawner?
No, you cannot silk touch a spawner. Spawners will break into experience orbs regardless of what tool you use.
12. Can a silk touch axe break a chest?
No, a Silk Touch axe cannot break a chest and collect it. However, you can collect an ender chest with a pickaxe with a silk touch enchantment.
13. Can you get a beehive with a silk touch axe?
Yes, you can collect both bee nests and bee hives with a Silk Touch axe without the bees becoming angry.
14. Is Silk Touch good for diamonds?
No, Silk Touch on a pickaxe allows you to collect diamond ore blocks instead of raw diamonds. However, this makes it impossible to benefit from the Fortune enchantment, which can increase the number of diamonds you get from each ore block.
15. Is it faster to break melons with a pickaxe or an axe?
While the axe is better for collection with Silk Touch, pickaxes can break melons more quickly.
Conclusion
A Silk Touch axe is a specialized tool in Minecraft that excels at preserving blocks. It’s incredibly useful for players who prioritize aesthetics, efficient farming of certain crops, or relocating valuable blocks. While it might not be an everyday tool like a pickaxe, it’s an invaluable addition to any builder’s or collector’s arsenal. Understanding its specific advantages helps players make the most of its unique capabilities in their Minecraft adventures.