Iron items disappear in water?

[David Taylor]

I made a bunch of iron chains and an iron knifeblade due to a misclick after putting the ingot down and was throwing them into a water block to cool them down. I noticed there weren't as many chains as I remembered making about halfway through and then everything disappeared.

Did they rust away?

[Maelstrom]

No.  But they may have despawned if you left them in the water for more than 10 IRL minutes.

 

[Kevin Eric Snell]

Ugh. I didn't have a timer running, but that must be what just happened. I was smithing in the night, and even though rift activity was "calm," for some reason a bunch of drifters spawned, which I hadn't realized until I stepped outside to drop my copper plate in the pool. Morning was hectic as I was dodging like 5 guys who refused to despawn, and by the time I managed to get back to the pool, it was gone. Didn't feel like 10 minutes, but time flies when you're dealing with stupid stuff.

[Michael Gates]

You can build a little cistern of water inside your smithy for this, and to refill the endless barrels of water you need to make leather. Get a bucketful of water and fill the cistern with Ctrl-click. I tried adding a little sculpted post in that corner bit to make it look less awkward, but that shoves you away enough to make it hard to retrieve your metal items after they've cooled.

[Echo Weaver]

I do something similar, but just with a 1x1 hole in the floor.