Because of atrocious mat prices, it's not worth crafting anything you can buy in the shop. It's not worth crafting anything to smash at all.
Back when varnish was 200a, iron was 180a, and bone was 70a, I could craft items which turned into d-crystals at 400'ish adena, and that's not a huge profit. Imagine how bad it gets with varnish and bone at 1.5k.
If you buy from the giran shop at normal taxes, it's 632 per crystal. If you want c-crystals, the best way is to usually make dual elven swords bought from shop, which turns into 2,9k-something per C crystal.
The best way overall is just to scout out cheap items that players are selling. But keep in mind that the game has a completely different idea over what an item is worth than players do. You get much less d-crystals from a brig helmet than you do from a brig breastplate for example.
A good way to get cheap c-crystals is to buy cheap tarbars or equivalents, turn them into sor's, and dual them.
either that or train the tobs for their gear, and crush whatever they give you. but thats a little ways off for you splatter.
how much u got at the moment? couple huindred dispensable K adena?
sink it into (as tarun said) something from a raid (LOL) or into something player stores have. find a cheap tarbar or demon fangs in dion (usually because demon fangs cannot be upgraded at mammon, players just sell for cheap) and crush that.
i use only mats that i have collected for crushing.. so htey are basicly free.. weather they be cheep or not.. and i think .. jewerly works best .. and the bone helmet .. keeps my 7 toons in ss.. for two years now
I always sell those spoiled recipe's and mat's (D/C-grade) to the shop.
It's recipe's like "Earring of Protection" "neckles of mermaid" and mats like "ring of protection gemstone", and so on.
Last time I got more then 650.000a for selling that to the NPC shop.
i use only mats that i have collected for crushing.. so htey are basicly free.. weather they be cheep or not.. and i think .. jewerly works best .. and the bone helmet .. keeps my 7 toons in ss.. for two years now
It's still wasted potential profit. If I spoiled the mats to craft something I could either sell the mats for 50k or crush it to get crystals for 20k, if you get the idea.
Speaking of Teon, no idea how it works on other servers:
Stuff you need expensive materials (animal bone, varnish and its derivatives like coarse bone powder, varnish of purity or high grade suede) for, it's not worth crafting for crushing unless you can get the derivative mats for less than it would cost to craft them (as is currently the case for high grade suede, with costs around 50% of its "production cost"). While you might get a few adena of profit, the time needed for it is prohibitive.
As a result, you should try to craft stuff which consists entirely of cheap basic mats. Easier said than done ... Jewelry is good if you can get varnish cheaply. Stuff like leather boots, mantikore skin boots or crafted leather gloves works with a cheap supply of high grade suede, and so on.
Basically, however, you have to be aware of the current market all the time. What's good to make changes over time, and being able to recognize a deal instantly is nice, too.