Simplest Hammers
by Team Solar
With Simplest Hammers installed, hammers break a 3x3 area in one swing, so digging out a large patch of ore or stone takes far fewer actions.
What it does
Hammers are tiered tools that work like pickaxes but break a 3x3 area around the targeted block. The wider reach cuts the time spent on resource gathering and large excavations, which matters mostly in the later stages of a playthrough. A hammer is not handed out at the start: a player first finds a new smithing template, then applies it at a smithing table to upgrade a pickaxe into a hammer.
The templates generate mostly in villages, where they turn up most often in weaponsmith, toolsmith and armorer houses and less often in regular houses. The upgrade uses a matching material, so the smithing step fits into the normal tool progression. The mod is licensed under the MIT License and is open source, and its source code and issue tracker are public.
Installation requires only the loader itself. Simplest Hammers runs on client and server and is published for Forge and NeoForge, with builds covering 1.20.1 – 26.2 across eight release versions. The mod is not published for Fabric; the author has said Fabric ports are not usually made, and NeoForge is the main target.
Key features
Area mining hammers
Each hammer breaks a 3x3 area around the targeted block, letting a player clear wide stretches of stone or dirt quickly.
Tier-based hammers
Hammers come in tiers, so later hammers reach further in material strength and mining speed than the first ones.
Smithing template upgrade
A hammer is made by applying a new smithing template to a pickaxe at a smithing table, using a matching material.
Village loot
The smithing templates are found mainly in weaponsmith, toolsmith and armorer houses within villages.
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
Use cases
Who it’s for: Players who want faster digging in survival worlds and server owners who run survival with the mod on both sides. Both the server and every player need it.
How it compares
Only Hammers is published for Fabric, Forge and NeoForge, covers 1.19 – 26.3 and is under All rights reserved, so it is not open source. Humolp's hammers is a Forge-only mod for 1.20.1 under the MIT License, and it is not open source. Reforged (formerly Tiered) is open source under the MIT License and reaches 1.19 – 26.2 on Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt, which covers a wider set of loaders than Simplest Hammers does.
| Mod | Loaders | Game versions | Environment | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplest Hammers | Forge and NeoForge | 1.20.1 – 26.2 | Client and server | 2026-07-05 |
| Only Hammers | Fabric, Forge and NeoForge | 1.19 – 26.3 | Client and server | 2026-10-06 |
| Humolp's hammers | Forge | 1.20.1 | Client and server | 2025-08-11 |
| Reforged (formerly Tiered) | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.19 – 26.2 | Client and server | 2026-08-06 |
Questions
Does Simplest Hammers need to be installed on both sides?
Which loaders does Simplest Hammers support?
Where do players get the smithing template for a hammer?
In the catalog
Simplest Hammers is one of 17,631 Equipment mods on ModsFinder, and one of 9,216 Equipment mods for Forge. 13,894 mods support Minecraft 26.2.
More from Team Solar
Similar mods
What the author says
Tired of endless digging in Minecraft? Use a hammer! This mod adds hammers that function like pickaxes but in a 3x3 area which greatly simplifies resource gathering and digging in the middle and late stages of the game.
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/simplest-hammers
- Owner
- Team Solar
- Published
- 2024-03-02
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2026-07-05
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15