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If you drop sand or gravel block onto a placed torch, it breaks into item version - that is the common knowledge. There is a range of other blocks - I don't remember them all, but rail is definitely an example - dropping sand onto which causes it to break too.

But if I water flows over a torch or a rail, it washes them off, breaking them into items.

Is there any of these items that break sand, that is immune to being washed off by water?

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  • I haven't played minecraft in a while, but I think pressure plates fit this description.
    – Aran-Fey
    May 18, 2017 at 7:58

1 Answer 1

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The falling sand breaks when the sand entity reaches a block that stops it. Then it tries to convert into a sand block. This may not be possible if there is already another block at that place - in that case the sand is dropped as item. This means the sand block breaks when it is partially inside another block when it stops falling. So all non-full height blocks will break sand e.g. torches, slabs, pressure plates, enchanting table etc.

Water will break all plants except reeds and cactus and all circuitry blocks + a few others: button, end rod, flower pot, lever, rails, redstone dust, repeaters and comparators, skulls, torches, string, web, and trip wire hook.

Here is an exhaustive list of blocks that fit both criteria:

  • Bed (minecraft:bed)
  • Brewing Stand (minecraft:brewing_stand)
  • Cake (minecraft:cake)
  • Chest (minecraft:chest)
  • Daylight Sensor (minecraft:daylight_detector_inverted)
  • Daylight Sensor (minecraft:daylight_detector)
  • Enchantment Table (minecraft:enchanting_table)
  • End Portal (minecraft:end_portal_frame)
  • Ender Chest (minecraft:ender_chest)
  • Farmland (minecraft:farmland)
  • Grass Path (minecraft:grass_path)
  • Iron Trapdoor (minecraft:iron_trapdoor)
  • Purpur Slab (minecraft:purpur_slab)
  • Red Sandstone Slab (minecraft:stone_slab2)
  • Sugar Cane (minecraft:reeds)
  • Sign (minecraft:wall_sign)
  • Sign (minecraft:standing_sign)
  • Stone Pressure Plate (minecraft:stone_pressure_plate)
  • Stone Slab (minecraft:stone_slab)
  • Trapped Chest (minecraft:trapped_chest)
  • Weighted Pressure Plate (Heavy) (minecraft:heavy_weighted_pressure_plate)
  • Weighted Pressure Plate (Light) (minecraft:light_weighted_pressure_plate)
  • White Banner (minecraft:wall_banner)
  • Wood Slab (minecraft:wooden_slab)
  • Wooden Pressure Plate (minecraft:wooden_pressure_plate)
  • Wooden Trapdoor (minecraft:trapdoor)
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  • Nice. It seems like signs, being "transparent" to player collisions and not flammable would make the optimal structure of entrance to under-lava chamber immune to being buried with sand.
    – SF.
    May 18, 2017 at 9:19
  • I did not know that reeds withstood water...
    – Ben
    May 18, 2017 at 10:35
  • " "transparent" to player collisions " The word is "intangible" May 18, 2017 at 13:59

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