Ok well here's the way that I effectively mine for redstone, diamond, iron, and coal.
1.) First off I dig a natural staircase straight down until I hit admin, like this:
2.) I then proceed to walk up 4-6 levels from the admin and then pick a side to start digging on for now, like so:
3.) After picking the side I wish to dig on I dig a 8x2 hole straight along the direction I have chosen:
4.) When I finish digging the 8x2 hole I dig small 1x4 tunnels every 2 blocks into the walls of my base hole:
5.) Then I rinse and repeat the 3rd and 4th steps for as long as my picks last:
Optional Step
6.) This step is 100% optional but it has helped me a little bit. Use cartographer to find a nice big empty area of the underground layers and just dig the usual step 4 & 5 tunnel system to get around 1/4th to 2/4ths of the way into it, then start mining out one side of the tunnel so it measures 5x5 and then keep mining that as far as you deem it safe to. This step is simple and probably doesn't require a step but some people may just forget that you can strip mine... Make sure your in a large open space of just rock and no caves, or else you my just hit and lose your mine!
When hitting lava do the following:
This only applies if you are 100% sure the lava spring is not even 1 layer above you.
1.) Find lava:
2.) Slowly and carefully mine out a 2x2 hole around the lava without letting the lava spill out:
(My picture is a hasty made fake tunnel because I've already mined the area out, you should mine all the way around the lava.)
3.) Mine all the way around your lava to make it look like a lake:
4.) Proceed to mine out everything around the lava like so:
(This is done because their is a high chance of finding rare block's such as diamond and gold around lava)
The end result of 3 and a half hours of this mining method has given me the below tunnel network and the below items, the list of obtained items is the total for the entire network. It is updated daily:
Diamond - 13
Iron - 321
Coal - 532
Red Stone - 462
Cobblestone - 4500+
Most image sites have an option to resize images, for example, TinyPic (the one i use) you can set it to resize it for
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Ok well here's the way that I effectively mine for redstone, diamond, iron, and coal.
1.) First off I dig a natural staircase straight down until I hit admin, like this:
<------- this is the problem, remove the line break before this
2.) I then proceed to walk up 4-6 levels from the admin and then pick a side to start digging on for now, like so:
3.) After picking the side I wish to dig on I dig a 8x2 hole straight along the direction I have chosen:
4.) When I finish digging the 8x2 hole I dig small 1x4 tunnels every 2 blocks into the walls of my base hole:
5.) Then I rinse and repeat the 3rd and 4th steps for as long as my picks last:
The end result of 2 hours of this mining method has given me the below tunnel network and the below items:
Diamond - 6
Iron - 68
Coal - 276
Red Stone - 462
Cobblestone - 2000+
(Sorry the smig code isn't working for some reason, the pictures are very large so just CnP the link to them and check them out.The last picture was small enough to put here.)
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Your friendly neighborhood dragon. Don't be scared, I won't bite!
I am here for you, Don't be afraid to send me a message.
Those yeilds aren't very good for diamond and iron. I can usually find 120-150 iron in a decent sized natural cave and it usually doesn't take quite 2 hours. Well, I don't think it does... although I've been known to lose track of time while underground. Diamond is another story and it's a little more hit & miss, but most of my spelunking ventures produce at least 10 diamonds. My record for diamonds in a single cave is 31. (One vein had 6 in it!) :smile.gif:
@ Trippledot: Thx for finding a fix for the pictures!
@ Stundexim: The results with this type of mining vary, my diamond yeild was low mainly because I chose to branch off into a completely empty area of land where there is no lava. (I needed a ton of cobble stone for my wall and fortress, and I think lava increases the chance for diamond a lot.)
see that massive cave system to the top/right area? better off going there and caving.
(btw, spelunking is recreational, caving is the more official term)
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Your friendly neighborhood dragon. Don't be scared, I won't bite!
I am here for you, Don't be afraid to send me a message.
I'll attempt to head up to the top right in an hour or so, I had to abandon that mineshaft because of the large pool of lava straight in-front of it. (You can see it on the cave map, north tunnel at the end.)
ATM I'm just mining out the south-western area where you see the long green block, It's a strip mine that has yeilded over 600 cobble stone, 72 red dust, 1 diamond, and 3 iron.
No, really, detonate one at a time in various different parts way deep down, you can clear through things easily and much faster than flat out mining. A dozen diamonds in 10 minutes with only 30 or so TNT used, nom.
1.) First off I dig a natural staircase straight down until I hit admin, like this:
2.) I then proceed to walk up 4-6 levels from the admin and then pick a side to start digging on for now, like so:
3.) After picking the side I wish to dig on I dig a 8x2 hole straight along the direction I have chosen:
4.) When I finish digging the 8x2 hole I dig small 1x4 tunnels every 2 blocks into the walls of my base hole:
5.) Then I rinse and repeat the 3rd and 4th steps for as long as my picks last:
Optional Step
6.) This step is 100% optional but it has helped me a little bit. Use cartographer to find a nice big empty area of the underground layers and just dig the usual step 4 & 5 tunnel system to get around 1/4th to 2/4ths of the way into it, then start mining out one side of the tunnel so it measures 5x5 and then keep mining that as far as you deem it safe to. This step is simple and probably doesn't require a step but some people may just forget that you can strip mine... Make sure your in a large open space of just rock and no caves, or else you my just hit and lose your mine!
When hitting lava do the following:
This only applies if you are 100% sure the lava spring is not even 1 layer above you.
1.) Find lava:
2.) Slowly and carefully mine out a 2x2 hole around the lava without letting the lava spill out:
(My picture is a hasty made fake tunnel because I've already mined the area out, you should mine all the way around the lava.)
3.) Mine all the way around your lava to make it look like a lake:
4.) Proceed to mine out everything around the lava like so:
(This is done because their is a high chance of finding rare block's such as diamond and gold around lava)
The end result of 3 and a half hours of this mining method has given me the below tunnel network and the below items, the list of obtained items is the total for the entire network. It is updated daily:
Diamond - 13
Iron - 321
Coal - 532
Red Stone - 462
Cobblestone - 4500+
Sept/26/10
Sept/27/10
I am here for you, Don't be afraid to send me a message.
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I am here for you, Don't be afraid to send me a message.
works for me.
I am here for you, Don't be afraid to send me a message.
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- S -
@ Stundexim: The results with this type of mining vary, my diamond yeild was low mainly because I chose to branch off into a completely empty area of land where there is no lava. (I needed a ton of cobble stone for my wall and fortress, and I think lava increases the chance for diamond a lot.)
see that massive cave system to the top/right area? better off going there and caving.
(btw, spelunking is recreational, caving is the more official term)
I am here for you, Don't be afraid to send me a message.
ATM I'm just mining out the south-western area where you see the long green block, It's a strip mine that has yeilded over 600 cobble stone, 72 red dust, 1 diamond, and 3 iron.
--Updating the main post with another step
you must really need cobblestone.
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If you have that much TNT. id much rather use it for a recreational use, since caving is still much more efficient.
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thats... 150 creepers... yeah right.
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at least that's what i do.
Guess someone got a bad luck... very bad one...