Minecraft features a wide variety of weapons that you can use to damage mobs and other enemies. However, one of the most effective weapons players choose to wield time and time again is the simple bow. The bow is a weapon designed for longer range encounters, but it can deal a ton of damage if used correctly. Before you can think about wielding the bow, though, you need to know how to craft it in Minecraft.

Making a Bow in Minecraft

A bow is one of the easier weapons to make in Minecraft, only requiring two materials. Unfortunately, one of those materials can be difficult to come by. You can see the full crafting recipe for the bow below:

• Take three Sticks to a crafting table and place them in the top middle box, middle left box, and bottom middle box.
• With the Sticks in place, insert three Strings down the right column.

With that recipe, you’ll make a simple bow that requires arrows to use. Sticks are arguably the most basic resource to acquire in Minecraft, as you simply need to place any Plank in the center of a crafting table. You can easily get dozens of Sticks with just a few Planks and you’ll need them for plenty of other basic recipes in Minecraft.

As for String, that’s a bit tougher to come by. The most well-known to get String in Minecraft is to kill Spiders and Cave Spiders, which most commonly appear at night and in caves. However, you can get String by killing Striders and Cats as well. Aside from mob drops, String is also acquired in the following ways:

• Breaking cobwebs
• Disarming tripwires
• Fishing
• Received as a Cat Gift
• Bartering with a Villager

String is quite a useful resource in Minecraft, so whenever you see a Spider or other way to acquire it, you should attempt to add it to your inventory. Once you have some String for your bow, head to a crafting table, follow the recipe, and you’ll have a bow to use in Minecraft.

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