Iron Furnaces Mod Guide: Tiered Smelting from Iron to Crystal
Iron Furnaces adds five upgraded furnace tiers that smelt items significantly faster than vanilla. Starting with the Iron Furnace at twice the speed, each tier gets progressively faster, culminating in the Glass Furnace at five times vanilla speed. The mod also includes a portable Shulker Furnace for on-the-go smelting.
Overview
Iron Furnaces is a straightforward quality-of-life mod inspired by the popular Iron Chests mod. Where Iron Chests upgrades storage, Iron Furnaces upgrades smelting. The mod adds five new furnace tiers, each one smelting items faster than the last, plus a special Shulker Furnace variant that keeps its contents when you break it.
Every furnace in this mod works exactly like a vanilla Furnace. Same GUI, same fuel, same recipes. The only difference is speed. The upgrade path is linear and easy to follow: Vanilla Furnace to Iron, Iron to Gold, Gold to Diamond, then Diamond branches into either Obsidian or Glass depending on whether you want blast resistance or maximum speed. You can browse all the mod's recipes and items using the tabs at the top of this page.
Getting Started
- 1
Craft Your First Iron Furnace
Surround a vanilla Furnace with 8 Iron Ingots on a Crafting Table. This gives you an Iron Furnace that smelts items in 5 seconds instead of the vanilla 10 seconds, an immediate 2x speed boost for a very affordable cost.
- 2
Upgrade to Gold
Once you have some Gold Ingots, surround your Iron Furnace with 8 Gold Ingots. The Gold Furnace smelts in 3.3 seconds, roughly 3 times faster than vanilla. Each upgrade uses the previous tier as the center ingredient, so you never lose your existing furnace.
- 3
Reach Diamond Tier
The Diamond Furnace requires a Gold Furnace in the center with Diamonds on the sides. At 2.5 seconds per smelt (4x vanilla speed), this is where the real efficiency gains kick in. This tier also serves as the base for the two endgame variants.
- 4
Choose Your Endgame Path
From Diamond, you have two choices. The Obsidian Furnace (8 Obsidian around a Diamond Furnace) maintains the same 2.5-second speed but gains blast resistance. The Glass Furnace is the ultimate speed tier at 2 seconds per smelt, 5 times faster than vanilla. Build whichever suits your needs, or both.
Each furnace tier uses the previous tier as its crafting ingredient. You place the lower-tier furnace block in the center of the Crafting Table and surround it with the new material. This means you are always building on top of your existing furnace, not replacing it.
Furnace Tiers
Iron Furnace
The Iron Furnace is your entry point into the mod. With a cook time of 100 ticks (5 seconds), it smelts items exactly twice as fast as a vanilla Furnace. The recipe cost of 8 Iron Ingots is very reasonable for early game, and you should aim to replace your vanilla Furnaces with Iron Furnaces as soon as possible. Like all furnaces in this mod, it requires a Pickaxe with harvest level 1 or higher to mine.
Gold Furnace
The Gold Furnace cuts the cook time down to 66 ticks (3.3 seconds), making it approximately 3 times faster than vanilla. It requires 8 Gold Ingots surrounding an Iron Furnace. While Gold is more expensive, the speed increase from Iron to Gold is significant. If you have a steady Gold supply from the Nether or a Gold farm, this upgrade pays for itself quickly.
Diamond Furnace
At 50 ticks (2.5 seconds), the Diamond Furnace smelts 4 times faster than vanilla. The recipe uses a Gold Furnace in the center with Diamonds placed on the left and right sides. This is the pivotal tier in the upgrade path because it branches into two specialized variants: the Obsidian Furnace and the Glass Furnace.
Obsidian Furnace
The Obsidian Furnace shares the Diamond Furnace's cook time of 50 ticks (2.5 seconds) but adds significant blast resistance, making it immune to explosions from Creepers and TNT. If you are building a smelting setup in a dangerous area, near a mob farm, or anywhere explosions are a concern, the Obsidian Furnace is the right choice. It requires 8 Obsidian surrounding a Diamond Furnace.
Glass Furnace
The Glass Furnace is the fastest tier in the mod with a cook time of just 40 ticks (2 seconds), making it 5 times faster than a vanilla Furnace. It also has a transparent appearance thanks to its cutout render layer, allowing you to see through it. The Glass Furnace uses a Diamond Furnace as its base. This is the furnace you want for maximum throughput in your smelting arrays.
Furnace Tier Comparison
| Vanilla Furnace | Iron Furnace | Gold Furnace | Diamond Furnace | Obsidian Furnace | Glass Furnace | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cook Time (ticks) | 200 | 100 | 66 | 50 | 50 | 40 |
| Cook Time (seconds) | 10.0s | 5.0s | 3.3s | 2.5s | 2.5s | 2.0s |
| Speed Multiplier | 1x | 2x | ~3x | 4x | 4x | 5x |
| Hardness | 3.5 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 |
| Blast Resistance | 3.5 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Special | None | None | None | None | Blast Resistant | Transparent |
Since all these furnaces work with Hoppers just like the vanilla Furnace, you can build automated smelting arrays with them. A row of Glass Furnaces fed by Hoppers will process items 5 times faster than the same setup with vanilla Furnaces, and the transparent Glass Furnaces let you see the smelting progress at a glance.
The Shulker Furnace
The Shulker Furnace is a unique variant that behaves like a Shulker Box: when you break it, it retains all its contents including any items in the input, fuel, and output slots. This makes it perfect for portable smelting on mining trips or exploration. You can load it up with fuel and raw materials, break it, carry it in your inventory, and place it again when you need it.
The trade-off is speed. The Shulker Furnace smelts at vanilla speed (200 ticks, 10 seconds per item), so it is not meant to replace your base's furnace setup. Think of it as a convenience item for when you are away from home. Like Shulker Boxes, it comes in a dye color (defaulting to Purple) and has an opening/closing animation. It also cannot be pushed by Pistons, as the block will be destroyed instead.
Configuration
Iron Furnaces provides config options to adjust the cook time of every furnace tier. The values are measured in ticks (20 ticks = 1 second). By default, Iron is set to 100, Gold to 66, Diamond to 50, Obsidian to 50, and Glass (labeled "Crystal" in the config file) to 40. All cook time changes require a Minecraft restart to take effect.
If you find the higher-tier furnaces too fast or want to rebalance them for a modpack, you can tweak these values in the mod's config file. Setting all values to the same number, for example, would make the tiers purely cosmetic choices rather than speed upgrades.
All cook time configuration values are marked as RequiresMcRestart. Changing them in the config screen or config file will not apply until you fully restart Minecraft.
Automation and Hoppers
All Iron Furnaces mod furnaces are fully compatible with Hoppers and automation. They follow the same slot layout as the vanilla Furnace: items go in from the top, fuel feeds in from the sides, and smelted output is extracted from the bottom. This means your existing Hopper-based smelting setups can be upgraded simply by swapping out the Furnace blocks for higher-tier versions.
The furnaces also support Redstone comparator output, so you can use comparators to monitor how full a furnace is and build more advanced automated sorting and smelting systems. Each furnace emits a Redstone signal proportional to how many items are in its inventory, just like a vanilla Furnace.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do these furnaces work with any smelting recipe?
Yes. Every furnace in this mod uses the standard vanilla FurnaceRecipes system. Any item that can be smelted in a vanilla Furnace can be smelted in an Iron Furnace, Gold Furnace, or any other tier. This includes recipes added by other mods.
Can I use these furnaces with Hoppers?
Absolutely. All furnaces in this mod support sided inventory access. Items go in from the top, fuel from the sides, and output extracts from the bottom, exactly like a vanilla Furnace. They also emit comparator signals.
What is the difference between the Obsidian Furnace and the Glass Furnace?
Both are crafted from a Diamond Furnace. The Obsidian Furnace smelts at the same speed as Diamond (50 ticks, 2.5 seconds) but is blast resistant. The Glass Furnace is the fastest tier at 40 ticks (2 seconds) and has a transparent appearance, but offers no extra protection.
Does the Shulker Furnace keep its items when broken?
Yes, the Shulker Furnace works just like a Shulker Box. When you break it, the block drops as an item with all its contents stored inside. You can hover over it in your inventory to see a tooltip listing what is inside. However, it smelts at vanilla speed (200 ticks, 10 seconds).
Can I change the furnace speeds?
Yes. The mod's config file lets you adjust the cook time in ticks for every tier (Iron, Gold, Diamond, Obsidian, and Glass/Crystal). Lower values mean faster smelting. All changes require a full Minecraft restart to take effect.
What tool do I need to mine these furnaces?
All furnaces in this mod require a Pickaxe with harvest level 1 or higher, meaning a Stone Pickaxe or better. They have a hardness of 3.0 and blast resistance of 5.0.