Minecraft wiki entry for Gear, associated text: When edited into the game, a placed gear would show nothing in its block space and was invisible unless horizontally adjacent to one or more blocks. The placed gear would then show an animated gear sprite on the near side of each of those blocks. It was not possible to destroy a placed gear by mining a block that its gear sprite was shown on, because the placed gear itself was actually adjacent to that block. If the block a gear sprite was shown on was destroyed, the adjacent placed gear would no longer show that sprite. Removing all blocks adjacent to a placed gear would remove all of its visible gear sprites, leaving the placed gear invisible. Placed gears could not be destroyed directly by the player; attempts to do so would phase through to the block behind it, much like water. Placed gears could only be removed by letting water[needs testing] flow into them, or by explosions.