Gearcrafting is done at a Gearcrafting Forge. There is one behind Guillermo Armada in the Southwest corner of the Hub (brown building with cogs all over it). Guillermo also sells the Gearcrafting Forge for you to place in your Cornerstone or Club World.

It is highly recommended to go through the Gearcrafting Quest line for an introduction to gearcrafting basics. (Note: Some people are having issues finding the quest in their Quest menu. The quest line shows up as soon as you finish the tutorial and is called "Return to GUILLERMO ARMADA in the Hub". If you do not see that quest, try doing the tutorial again).

Everyone should get to 250 GC to be able to craft Crystal 5 gear right? No! So far that we've seen in the community, the best way to get C5 gear is to open thousands of Gearcrafting Vaults (GCVs). There are a few factors that we know with certainty that affect what can drop from GCVs, as identified by the tool-tip in-game.

• Power Rank
  
• Gearcrafting Skill Level
  
• Currently active Class (to calculate weapon drops)

We don't know the exact specifics for which Crystal level gear drops for which power rank. I know from experience that C4 can drop at 15k+ power rank with 250 GC. It is generally thought that C5 will only drop above 45k PR with 250 GC from GCVs, as it was noted in the PTS patch notes prior to the release of the C5 Gear Update. It is unlikely that it has changed.

You need to craft 250 items at the gearcrafting forge. The cheapest item to craft at every tier is the Face gear piece. You will make 50 at each different tier.
Total required materials:

• 250 Gearcrafting Mold: Face
  
• 28,500 Block Element
  
• 400 Shapestone Ore
  
• 600 Formicite Ore
  
• 1350 Infinium Ore
  
• 550 Eye of Q'bthulhu
  
• 3750 Cinnabar Ore
  
• 500 Emberslag Ore
  
• 500 Irradium Ore
  
• 480,000 Flux
  
• 1-50 Forged Radiant Soul
  
• 1-50 Forged Stellar Soul

By far, the cheapest way to obtain molds is to go to Medieval Highlands World (the first world) and loot a bunch of green and blue Faces. You want to forge all of these faces to 3 stars. Every 3 star or higher item drops a gearcrafting mold of the same type when loot collected. Upgrading a Green costs 6, 7, and 8 flux to upgrade 1, 2, and 3 stars. Loot collecting it will return 8 flux for a grand total cost of 13 flux for a mold. Blues cost 12, 14, and 16 flux and return 16 flux on loot collecting for a grand total of 26 flux per mold.

Block Element is mostly going to come from Gearcrafting Vaults and loot collecting gear. This is the bottle neck of the entire profession and even more so once you get to upgrading the Terminus (read as: Gearcrafting Star Chart)

It should be noted that many of the resources you need, including Molds can be dropped by the Gearcrafting Vaults themselves and the Miner's boxes that can also drop from the vaults. You can potentially level the profession up without purchasing or farming materials if you want to take your time. - Thanks to CandysLuck for pointing this out.

A note on Forged Souls. You get a soul when loot collecting a piece of Radiant or Stellar gear. If you want to spend as little as possible you can simple craft a piece, then loot collect it, then craft it again. I recommend at least 5 to make it less tedious. I recommend getting your first souls from the market, as you are likely to obtain crystal gear before you see a stellar or radiant drop in the Uber worlds.

Also keep in mind that you will be getting some of your other materials back when you loot collect all these crafted items. You will not get molds back unless you upgrade them to 3 stars, which increases your costs.

This section will evolve over time to include key drop points I've noticed as I open vaults at various PR levels. Most of my current testing has been with several thousand vaults at 15k+ PR with 250 GC skill. These drops pertain to Gearcrafting Vaults only.

At 15,000+ PR with 250 GC skill the following appear to be true:

• All gear drops will be at least C3
  
• C4 are a very rare drop

At 30,000+ PR and 250 GC skill, the following appear to be true:

• All gear drops will be at least C4

Pureforge Molds are required to make any Crystal gear pieces.
I personally have not accessed the point in which Tempered Block Element is used, but I saw mention in global chat that it is used to upgrade C5 gear.

Any feedback is welcome and I will try my best to answer any questions. This profession is new to everyone with the C5 update, so there are bound to be errors or better ideas brought to light in the coming weeks and months.