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The route in one paragraph
Quest or craft leather to 20. Cut gems from 20 to 54, stepping up to the best gem you can afford. Make battlestaves from 54, and from 63 move on to green dragonhide bodies. Red d'hide bodies at 77 are the fastest sensible method to 99; black d'hide at 84 is quicker still but much more expensive. Everything else in the skill, from glassblowing to jewellery, is either a cheaper, slower option or a way to make money while training. The crafting calculator shows how many gems, staves or bodies each step takes from your current XP.
Levels 1-20: quests or leather
Sheep Shearer, Goblin Diplomacy and Murder Mystery give 1,756 XP together and take a fresh account to 12. Murder Mystery alone is 1,406 XP and needs nothing. If you are working towards a quest cape, keep going: Elemental Workshop I needs 20 Crafting and gives 5,000 XP, and Death on the Isle gives 5,000 with no Crafting requirement.
Without quests, buy leather, a needle and thread and make the best leather item you can: gloves to 7, boots to 9, cowls to 11, vambraces to 14, bodies to 18 and chaps to 20. That is about 215 leather in total, a cheap and quick stretch.
Levels 20-54: cutting gems
| Level | Gem | XP each | XP/hr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | Sapphire | 50 | 139,000 |
| 27 | Emerald | 67.5 | 187,650 |
| 34 | Ruby | 85 | 236,300 |
| 43 | Diamond | 107.5 | 298,850 |
Gem cutting is about 2,780 gems an hour, one click per inventory. Sapphires and emeralds are cheap and quick to buy; rubies are the usual middle ground; diamonds are the fastest gem and still reasonable. Dragonstones unlock at 55 but cost far more per XP, so skip them while training. If diamond prices are high, cutting rubies until 58 and then going straight to earth battlestaves is a good alternative.
Levels 54-99: battlestaves and d'hide bodies
| Level | Item | XP each | XP/hr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 54 | Water battlestaff | 100 | 245,000 |
| 58 | Earth battlestaff | 112.5 | 275,625 |
| 62 | Fire battlestaff | 125 | 306,250 |
| 63 | Green d'hide body | 186 | about 313,000-331,000 |
| 66 | Air battlestaff | 137.5 | 336,875 |
| 71 | Blue d'hide body | 210 | about 354,000-374,000 |
| 77 | Red d'hide body | 234 | about 394,000-417,000 |
| 84 | Black d'hide body | 258 | about 435,000-460,000 |
Battlestaves are cheap per XP but need a lot of capital, since you buy the orb and the staff for each one. With the Varrock diary, Zaff sells noted battlestaves at a discount every day, which is worth collecting even if you are not training yet. Water and earth staves are the budget picks; air staves give the best XP of the four.
Green d'hide bodies from 63 cost about the same per XP as fire and air battlestaves and tie up less money. From 77, d'hide bodies become the fastest method worth using. The costume needle, from the Costumer in Aldarin after Death on the Isle, makes these inventories a little more efficient. Compare battlestaff prices with leather and orbs before each block of levels; the cheapest route changes as markets move.
Inventory setups that keep the rates up
For gems, carry a chisel and 27 uncut gems. For battlestaves, 14 staves and 14 orbs, one click to combine. For d'hide bodies, a needle, thread and 26 pieces of dragon leather, which makes eight bodies at three leather each, with the two spare pieces carried into the next inventory. The fewer items you withdraw, the faster the bank loop, so use the bank's quantity buttons and a fixed bank tab for each method. Short inventories are where the quoted rates come from; a slow bank costs far more than a missed click.
Cheaper and slower: glass, lamps and golems
- Glassblowing: slow but low capital and very low attention. Unpowered orbs at 46 run around 92,000 XP/hr, lantern lenses at 49 around 96,000 and empty light orbs at 87 around 122,500. Buy molten glass or make it yourself.
- Superglass Make (61+): with 77 Magic and Lunar Diplomacy, casting Superglass Make on giant seaweed and buckets of sand gives about 108,000-153,000 Crafting XP an hour once you blow the glass too, plus Magic XP. Details on the superglass make page.
- Dorgesh-Kaan lamps (52+): after The Lost Tribe, with 52 Crafting and Firemaking. About 90,000 XP/hr while learning, up to 130,000 when you are quick and making light orbs.
- Golem crafting (60+): after Fallen From Grace, rates can pass 180,000 XP/hr at close to break-even.
- Fishing crane repair (30+): trains Crafting and Construction at once, 4 times your level in each skill per repair. Slow, but some of the cheapest XP in the game.
Crafting for profit
Jewellery is the main money maker. Gold and silver jewellery is low XP but often sells for more than the bars and gems cost, and dragonstone jewellery can be profitable at high levels, though it trades in small volumes. The best furnace for jewellery is at Wyrmscraig after Fallen From Grace, then Prifddinas, then Edgeville. Drift nets on Fossil Island from 26 give around 60,000 XP/hr and a profit, which beats glassblowing until 46.
Amethyst from 83 is close to break-even: cutting bolt tips gives 60 XP each at about 165,000 XP/hr. Check the amethyst price against the tips before committing. The full list of earners is on the Crafting money making page.
Quest XP
| Quest | Crafting XP | Crafting needed |
|---|---|---|
| Murder Mystery | 1,406 | None |
| Death on the Isle | 5,000 | None |
| Elemental Workshop I | 5,000 | 20 |
| Elemental Workshop II | 7,500 | 20 |
| Cabin Fever | 7,000 | 45 |
| The Hand in the Sand | 9,000 | 49 |
| Fallen From Grace | 10,000 | 60 |
| The Fremennik Exiles | 50,000 | 65 |
The Fremennik Exiles is the standout at 50,000 XP, but it needs 65 Crafting and a strong account. Most of the others are worth doing as soon as you meet the level.
Ironman Crafting
Ironmen cannot buy their way up the gem and d'hide route, so most get the bulk of 99 from molten glass, made from buckets of sand and seaweed bought from shops and charter ships or turned out in bulk with Superglass Make. Gems from Wintertodt and Slayer, Zaff's daily battlestaves with the Varrock diary, and dragonhide from your own kills fill in the rest. Keep a few elemental battlestaves for your own spellcasting before you turn every one into XP.
What Crafting unlocks
55 Crafting lets you make a Slayer helmet, which is reason enough for most combat players to train it. Beyond that, Crafting gates quests such as Monkey Madness II, gives you your own battlestaves, dragonhide armour and jewellery, and lets you make light sources for dark caves. If you plan to use Superglass Make, it is worth reading the Magic training route too, since the two skills grow together there. Invisible and visible boosts for reaching a recipe early are listed on Crafting boosts.