I was wondering the best way to check if an item is in a slot that is part of a tileentity. I want it so that 4 tools are in 4 slots and only when they are there does the crafting table. I have done stuff like this before in using just the tileentity, so all I did was use getStackInSlot() to get the items. Won't it need to be static to be passed to the other class that handle crafting? If it's static though, then you wont be doing the proper override.

You can make checks before the handler does its thing can't you? For example in your tile entity:

if (getStackInSlot(slot) == Items.item && getStackInSlot(slot1) == Items.item1 /* etc., etc., etc. */)
{
        // call to the the crafting handler stuff here.
}

Well actually thinking about it more. I think I'm going to adjust the ShapedRecipes and shapless to check for the items in the Tile entity slots. It will make it a lot more easier to work with in the long run since I want them to take damage according to recipes. I was thinking that I would just add the check onto the end of the methods that already does it and have it loop through or whatever. But I am unsure on how I would make a call like that to pass in the appropriate information.