Mining Sandstone at the Desert Quarry (Fastest way, most effort required) Filling buckets in Yanille using teleports Filling buckets in Prifddinas (Lowest effort) Filling buckets in Zanaris (Lowest requirements)
Buckets of sand are a vital ingredient in the creation of molten glass, a popular item frequently used by many players that want to level their Crafting skill. While most people opt to just buy any sand or supplies that they happen to need, some players choose to be more self-sufficient and prefer gathering everything on their own. Gathering a vast amount of sand is almost a rite of passage for ironman players, since a high crafting level is one of the only ways to get the coveted Amulet of Glory in their hands. Lastly, because getting said sand is an incredibly tedious and repetitive task, I advise you to take small breaks between every few thousand buckets that you collect!
The Best Methods Analyzed
Mining Sandstone at the Desert Quarry
The absolute quickest way of getting buckets of sand is through mining at the Desert Quarry. The strategy here is to mine the sandstone rocks until your inventory fills up, and then feed them to the Sandstorm, the nearby machine operated by the NPC Drew. Every time you deposit some sandstone in the machine, Drew will inform you about how many buckets of sand can be created. Once you’ve reached your desired amount, all you have to do is bring an equal number of empty buckets back to Drew, and exchange them for buckets of sand at a rate of 50 coins per bucket (so a thousand buckets will cost you 50k). Doing this can net you over three thousand buckets an hour, while also getting you some mining exp! The only requirement for this is 35 Mining, in order to be able to mine the sandstone rocks. Don’t forget to bring some waterskins and to wear heat-reducing gear, like the Desert or Menaphite clothing.
Filling Buckets in Yanille Using Teleports
Next up, we’ve got a method that can be switched up a bit to suit your liking. Did you know that you have the option of teleporting outside the portal to your Player-owned house? This is the basic gist of our strategy here. By setting/relocating your house to Yanille (requires 50 Construction), you can take advantage and make use of the close proximity of the sandpit to your house portal. What you want to do is teleport to your house, fill your buckets at the nearby sandpit, use another teleport that gets you as close to a bank as possible, store your buckets and teleport back again for a new inventory. Some suggested teleports are the Ring of Dueling to Castle Wars, or the good ole Camelot teleport (puts you outside the Seers’ Village bank after the Hard Achievement Diary).
Filling Buckets in Prifddinas
This one is perhaps the easiest one to execute, to the point that you can just turn your brain off and start watching something more interesting on your second monitor (we’ve all been there at one point). The bank is so close to the sandpit that it can be reached with only one click.! All you have to do is fill your buckets, click the bank, rinse and repeat. The hardest part of this place is getting access to the crystal city, since it requires completion of the grandmaster quest “Song of the Elves”.
Filling Buckets in Zanaris
Our last method is very similar and essentially a downgrade to the Prifddinas one, and is targeted towards low and mid level players. The technique here is exactly the same, albeit with a little more walking between the bank and the sandpit. Depending on how much you’re concentrating, you can get around one to two thousand buckets of sand per hour here.
Things You Should Know
Whether you’re going after a few hundred or multiple thousands of buckets, there’s a few more things you should know before starting the grind:
The amount of sand that can be acquired per hour through sandstone mining can be greatly increased through tick manipulation, if you want to put in the effort (three tick mining). You can use the lunar spell Humidify to refill your waterskins while in the desert. A rune pouch can hold all the required runes, saving you two inventory spaces. Players that haven’t completed the Hard Kandarin Diary can use PvP worlds as an alternative to take advantage of the different bank locations. Do NOT wear other valuable items while in these worlds, because other players can attack you and make you lose them. The Graceful outfit and Stamina Potions greatly help if you’re running out of run energy (which is going to happen quite often).
