How are people managing to make an armor stand in minecraft?

Once you've got one: right-click with armour to put it on, punch it twice to pick it back up. Doesn't need a slot of its own in any build, so they're great for storing a spare set next to your bed.

six sticks and a slab, but it has to be a smooth stone slab. stone slab, cobble slab, neither works, and that's what these threads almost always turn out to be. smooth stone is stone smelted a second time - cobble to stone, stone back in the furnace, then slab that.