Crafting
Equipment - There are too many items to name but some main ones are flax, thread, needle, battlestaff/orbs, and many types of hides.
Lvl 1-99
Method 1 Lvls 1-10: Cowhide Armor - To start out crafting get around 100 cowhides from Lumbridge cows. Tan them at the Al-Kharid tanner (which is now free for normal leather), and make ranging armor until (lvl) 10 crafting.
Method 1 Lvls 10-57: Bowstrings - Making bowstrings comes in first on our list. Either buy flax or pick it yourself and spin it in one of two places, Neitiznot or Lumbridge. Neitiznot is a bit faster than Lumbridge and Seer's village but it does require that you begin the Fremennik Isles quest. [up to where you can get onto the islands] If you haven't done this quest, spin in Lumbridge because it's faster than spinning in Seer's Village and not much slower that Neiznot.
XP: 20k xp/hr - GP: 150k gp/hr
Method 2 Lvls 10-57: Cowhides - Flax is the advised method but you could continue on with the cowhides. This is what I did seeing as I wasn't a member yet and it worked fine for me. It's more expensive if you buy your hides, but still a great way to get xp. It's vital that you sell your hard leather bodies after you make them or you'll lose double the cash. They'll slowly sell on the GE or you can sell them to a leather shop in Al-Kharid if you're too lazy for the GE [wow I really hope you aren't that lazy].
XP: 80-140k xp/hr [Depends on type of leather] - GP: -320k gp/hr
Method 1 Lvls 57-66/99: Green Dragonhide - There are so many options for crafting at these levels, but all so hard. This one to me seems best though. You're going to want to buy green D hide and make vamp braces until you can make green bodies. Green bodies give you the quickest exp and save you the most money. If you happen to do green vambs, be prepared to lose more money. If you can make around 300k+ per hour somehow, I would recommend NOT tanning your D hides yourself and instead, buying your leathers. If you cannot make 300k per hour, buy hides and tan (them) yourself. You can buy green D leather on the GE easily, and using this method, you'll probably lose time but save money over doing blue leathers to 99. In conclusion, do green vambs from 57-63, and then green bodies to at least 66. I'd recommend doing green bodies through level 99 over blue bodies as it's less expensive and easier.
[Buying them Tanned:] XP: 250k xp/hr - GP: -2M gp/hr
Method 2 Lvls 66-99: Air Battlestaves - Another good option at these levels are air battlestaves. These are slightly slower experience than green d'bodies [if buying them tanned], but are much cheaper and easier to do. The only problem is that you can only buy 100 of them every four hours and 16/32/64/80 from Naff, so you can only get a maximum of about 90k xp worth per day. Still, they are great experience because you can do your days worth in half an hour and then go to another skill.
XP: 180K xp/hr - GP: -740k gp/hr
Speed - Crafting is one of the most difficult skills our there due to the money aspect. It's fast if you have money, but if you don't it can be very slow. I'll put it down as about an 8 on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the fastest?).
Uses - There are many great uses for crafting. Great dragon hide armor is constructed with it, rings and almost every nifty little thing you can think of involves crafting in a way. Very useful skill to have a high lvl in.
Misconceptions - Gem cutting IS NOT an efficient source of exp. Yes, it's fast, but it costs a ton of money, much like D hide crafting. But, if you compare the numbers, you can obviously see that green D hides are more efficient over gem cutting, no matter how much money you have. There's always a type of D hide training that is more efficient, like buying already tanned blue d hides is more efficient than even cutting diamonds! Here is (a) small comparison, so you can see my numbers: Emerald cutting vs. green d hide crafting - To earn 2M exp, emerald cutting, you'd need 9.4M, and you'd spen 10.5 hours. For green d hide crafting, you'd need 9.6M and spend 8 hours. Which raises the question: Is saving 130K worth 2.5 hours? If you make under 52K per hour [lol], then it is! Otherwise, it's not, which should include 100% of you.
