Minecraft Java Edition: How to Craft and Use Scaffolding

Scaffolding is a building block in Minecraft that helps you reach high places while constructing towers or working on exterior walls. You can quickly stack it, climb through it, and remove the blocks that depend on it when the work is finished.

This guide explains how to craft and use scaffolding in Java Edition. The controls described here use the default keyboard and mouse bindings; Bedrock Edition controls differ.

How to craft scaffolding

You need six bamboo and one string to craft six scaffolding blocks. You can find bamboo in jungle biomes and obtain string from spiders. The materials and crafting output are also described in Minecraft's official scaffolding guide.

Open a crafting table and fill the left and right columns of its 3 × 3 grid with bamboo. Place the string in the top middle slot, leaving the other two middle slots empty:

Take the six scaffolding blocks from the result slot.

How to use scaffolding

• Select scaffolding in your hotbar and right-click to place it on the ground.
• To build a column, keep aiming at the bottom scaffolding block and right-click repeatedly.

• The new blocks stack on top of the column, so you can build upward while standing on the ground.

• Walk into the scaffolding and hold the Jump key (Space) to climb. Hold the Sneak key (Left Shift) to descend.
• While partway up the column, look upward and place more scaffolding to extend it above you.

• When you place scaffolding against the column while looking horizontally, it extends in the direction you are facing.

• Scaffolding can extend up to six blocks horizontally from a supported column without another support.

• A block placed beyond that limit falls. If it lands on suitable ground, it can become the base of another column.

• Build another column from the ground and connect it to the platform to extend your route farther across.

• To remove scaffolding, aim at a block and left-click to break it.

• Blocks above it and horizontal sections that lose their support also break. Sections with another valid support can remain in place.
• The broken scaffolding drops as items that you can collect and use again.

• You can also remove a block partway up a column rather than breaking its base.

• The unsupported blocks above that point break, while the lower part of the column remains.