You're standing in the middle of your newly built cathedral, or maybe just a cozy village square, and it hits you. It needs that iconic ding. You head over to your crafting table, throw some gold ingots and sticks together—maybe a bit of stone—and... nothing. You check the recipe book. Still nothing. Here is the blunt reality that trips up almost every player eventually: you cannot make a bell on Minecraft using a crafting table.
It's weird, right? You can craft a literal dragon egg lamp or a complex circuit of redstone repeaters, but a simple hunk of brass on a frame is off-limits to your crafting grid. If you’re searching for a "bell recipe," you’re going to find a lot of clickbait and old mods, but in the vanilla game, the "how to make a bell on Minecraft" answer is actually about sourcing, not crafting.
Where Bells Actually Come From
Since the crafting table is a dead end, you’ve got to get creative with how you acquire one. Honestly, the most common way—and the one that usually leads to a bit of "unintentional" village griefing—is just taking them from a village. Every village that generates naturally has a meeting point. This is usually a small structure with some path blocks around it where the villagers gather at noon to gossip and share bread.
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There is always a bell there.
If you have a pickaxe, you can just pop it off its stand. It’s yours. No guilt required (unless you care about the villagers' ability to warn each other about raids, which, let’s be real, most of us prioritize our base aesthetics over NPC safety anyway). But if you’re playing a "hero of the village" run and don't want to steal, you have to talk to the locals.
The Trading Route
The Armorer, Toolsmith, and Weaponsmith villagers are your best friends here. You aren't going to get a bell from a level one novice, though. You have to put in the work. You need to trade enough coal, iron, or whatever they're asking for to get them up to the Apprentice level.
Once they hit Apprentice rank (that's the second tier of their trade), they have about a 33% to 50% chance of offering a bell in exchange for 36 emeralds. Yeah, you read that right. Thirty-six emeralds. It is one of the most expensive "utility" items in the game. It’s basically the luxury watch of the Minecraft world. If you’ve got a fletcher nearby buying sticks for emeralds, it’s an easy grind, but for a survival starter, that’s a steep price for a decorative block.
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Ruined Portals: The Wildcard
There is a small, slim chance of finding a bell in the chest of a Ruined Portal. These are those fractured obsidian frames scattered across the Overworld and the Nether. I wouldn't rely on this as your primary method because the loot tables are weighted heavily toward golden tools and flint and steel, but it’s a nice surprise when it happens. It feels like winning the lottery, mostly because it saves you thirty-six emeralds or the trip to a nearby village.
Why Everyone Wants a Bell Anyway
So why go through the hassle if you can't even craft the thing? It isn't just for the sound, though the sound is great. The bell is a functional "entity" block with some pretty specific code tied to it.
If you're in a village and a raid starts, ringing the bell does something incredibly helpful: it applies a "glowing" outline to all raid mobs (Illagers, Ravagers, Vexes) within 48 blocks of the bell. This outline even works through walls. It's essentially a sonar system. If you've ever spent twenty minutes looking for that one last Pillager stuck in a cave under the village, you know exactly why this matters.
In Java Edition, the bell only rings if you "use" it (right-click) or hit it with a projectile. In Bedrock, you can actually trigger it with a redstone signal. This makes the Bedrock bell a much more versatile tool for base alarms or automated village systems.
The Physics of the Ding
Minecraft bells are surprisingly complex in how they attach to things. They aren't just floor blocks. You can hang them from the ceiling, stick them to the side of a wall, or place them on the ground.
- Floor placement: It sits on a little wooden stand.
- Ceiling placement: It hangs from a single support beam.
- Wall placement: It attaches with a horizontal bar.
If you break the block it’s attached to, the bell drops as an item. It’s a sturdy little thing, too. You can use any pickaxe to mine it, but if you try to punch it out with your fist, it takes forever and might not drop anything depending on your version and luck. Just use a pick. Even a wooden one works.
Debunking the Crafting Myths
If you’ve seen a YouTube thumbnail showing a crafting recipe involving gold blocks and a piece of wood, it’s a lie. Or, at the very least, it's a mod like Quark or Supplementaries. In the base game, Mojang decided that the bell should be a "trophy" item. It’s meant to represent civilization. By making it uncraftable, they force the player to interact with the village mechanics.
It’s the same logic behind why you can’t craft a Saddle or Horse Armor. These items are rewards for exploration and commerce, not just for sitting in your basement mining cobblestone.
Does Luck Affect Bell Trades?
A common question is whether the Luck status effect or having Hero of the Village makes bells cheaper. Hero of the Village absolutely reduces the cost. That 36-emerald price tag can drop significantly if you've recently saved the town from a raid. However, it won't change whether the villager offers the bell—that’s determined the moment they level up to Apprentice. If they don't have it, you have to find a different smith or "cycle" a new villager by breaking and replacing their job site block (the blast furnace, grindstone, or smithing table) before you've traded with them.
Practical Next Steps for Your World
If you need a bell right now, stop looking at your crafting table. Follow this checklist to get one in the next ten minutes:
- Locate the nearest village. If you can't find one, look for Ruined Portals or use the
/locate structure villagecommand if you have cheats enabled. - Check the village center. Look for the bell first. If you're okay with being a thief, mine it and leave.
- Find a Smith. Look for a villager with a flat cap or an apron. If there aren't any, craft a Grindstone or a Blast Furnace and place it near an unemployed villager to turn them into a Toolsmith or Armorer.
- Farm Emeralds. The easiest way is to turn a villager into a Fletcher (using a Fletching Table) and sell them sticks. You'll need about 4 or 5 stacks of sticks to get enough emeralds for a bell.
- Level up your Smith. Trade iron or coal with your smith until they hit the second tier. Check their trades. If the bell isn't there, you'll need to try with another villager.
Once you have the bell, remember that its orientation matters for your build. If you want it to look like a massive church bell, hang it from the ceiling of a high tower. If you want a town crier vibe, place it on a fence post in the square. Just don't expect to find a recipe for it in your 2x2 or 3x3 grid—because in the world of Minecraft, some things are earned, not made.