Have you ever tried making a house but kept falling off the roof? Do you have issues with climbing up and down ladders? If you enjoy building in Survival mode but have difficulty reaching high places, scaffolding may be the block you’re looking for. However, with its peculiar crafting recipe, it’s not the easiest block to make, especially if you don’t have quick access to the necessary items. This guide will teach you how to craft and use scaffolding in Minecraft Java and Bedrock Editions.

How to Get Scaffolding in Minecraft

You can craft scaffolding using bamboo and string in Minecraft Java and Bedrock. Specifically, you need six bamboo shoots and one string to make six scaffolding blocks. Since the recipe does not fit into your inventory crafting interface, you’ll also need a crafting table.

String is obtainable as a drop from spiders and striders. If you’re in peaceful mode, you can also break cobwebs using a sword for string. You may also find it in jungle temples and dungeon treasure chests.

Bamboo may be slightly harder to find, depending on your access to a jungle biome. Bamboo spawns in abundance in jungles. Alternatively, you can defeat pandas for drops. While they’re not a guaranteed drop in Bedrock Edition, Java Edition pandas will always drop one bamboo.

Once you’ve obtained six bamboo and one string, head to your crafting table and arrange them according to the image above. If you need more scaffolding blocks, you’ll have to get more materials and repeat the process.

Upon making the scaffolding, you can place them down like a regular block and climb up them like a ladder. Like a bamboo plant, breaking the bottom scaffolding block also results in the rest falling down. You can also only build out up to six blocks before having to support the scaffolding. If you try to build a seventh block away, the scaffolding will drop to the ground.

Thankfully, unlike most blocks, you do not have to crouch-place the blocks to stop yourself from falling. Instead, interact with the scaffold while facing the direction you wish to place the block to build across automatically. This also works when building upwards, meaning you don’t even have to stand on top of the scaffolding to place it! Be careful if you do crouch down, though, since you’ll descend the scaffolding, resulting in you taking fall damage if there are no supporting blocks underneath.

Minecraft is available on PC, Android, iOS, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation platforms.