Armour in Minecraft does not have to look the same as everyone else's. Armour trims add a pattern and a color to any armour piece, and a few other pieces, like the turtle shell helmet and netherite gear, are made in their own way. This guide covers how trims work, where to find every pattern, and how to make the unusual pieces.
Checked against Minecraft Java Edition 26.3, October 2026.
How a trim works
Trims are applied at a smithing table, which has three slots:
- A smithing template of the pattern you want. The template is used up.
- A helmet, chestplate, leggings or boots.
- A trim material, which sets the color.
The template decides the pattern and the material decides the color. Trims are purely visual and give no bonus, so they never change how well the armour protects you. The materials are iron, copper, gold, lapis lazuli, emerald, diamond, netherite, redstone, amethyst, quartz and resin brick.
Where to find each template
There are 18 trim patterns. Most come from structure loot, so you will have to explore:
Trail ruins have no chests, so you need a brush for those four. Get a sniffer in Minecraft shows how brushing works. Some templates are rarer than others, so expect to search more than once.
Copy a template
Found a pattern you love? Put it in the crafting grid with 7 diamonds and 1 block of the material named in the Copy it with column of the table above. The template you put in is used up, and you get two back, so you end up with one more than you started with. The grid is the template in the top middle, the block in the center, and diamonds in every other slot.
Netherite upgrade
Netherite gear needs its own template. Take a Netherite Upgrade smithing template from a bastion remnant chest, then use the smithing table with the template, a diamond armour piece or tool, and a netherite ingot. You can copy this template with netherrack, the same way as a trim template.
Turtle shell helmet
Five turtle scutes make a turtle shell helmet. In the crafting grid, put three in the top row and one at each end of the row below. A turtle drops one scute when a baby turtle grows up. Animal breeding chart has the food for turtles.
On your server
None of this needs a plugin. On a creative or build server, an operator can hand out a template with a command such as give <player> minecraft:silence_armor_trim_smithing_template. Replace silence with any pattern name from the table. To make a player an operator, see Whitelist players and set operators.
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