It will do, but only until you get to level 5 in smithing, there are cheaper options to get there.

I can occasionaly steal these off of Goblin Diggers as a 34 Thf

~Intro to Mining~
A lot of people ask when they want to start mining, Will it be beneficial for me to buy the Field Gear? It is very much worth it, and if you are going to be serious about mining, it is a must-have. Like everything else, it takes a little bit of money to make make money. It will most likely cost you around
30-40k to buy a full set of field equipment and i would reccomend that you buy the workers gloves (part of the lvl 15 mining set), which will only cost about 2k.

After you have properly equipped yourself, clear out your inventory as much as possible, at this point you should only have your 4 pieces of mining gear, your linkshell, and mabey a piece of head armor and a weapon to get you by in case you get aggro.

Next, your going to need to pick up some pickaxes which are sold by various NPCs in town. They generally sell around 200 gil, more or less depending on your fame.Pick up 2 or 3 stacks of them to avoid constand trips back to town.

Bastok Mines- Boytz (H-7)
Bastok Port- Numa (E-7)
Upper Jeuno- Champalpieu (G-6)
South San d'Oria- Ostalie (F-9)
Windurst Waters- Upih Khachla (H-9)

At this point you should have 10 items in your inventory max, leaving you 20 spaces for nothin but ores.
Nextly and most importantly, chosing your location. Theres alot of places to mine, but depending on your level, you should be in different places. The most important thing is not to mine in places where you're going to pick up aggro. Theres more places than these, but heres some of the popular spots.

Zeruhn Mines- Pretty much for low lvls, almost anyone over level 5 can come here and mine with no problem. Common ores here are Copper, tin, zinc, iron, and silver. The less common are silver and darksteel, which are defenately keepers, they sell decently, between 5k-10k.

Palborough Mines- Good for around level 20-30. Common ores are Copper, tin, zinc, and silver. Rare ores are Iron, mythril, platinum, and silver. The problem with palborough is that you cant get gold or darksteel ores, so theres really not much thats going to make this trip worthwile, the most expensive ore you'll get here is still less than 1k. Not the best place to mine, but its there.

Yughott Grotto- An all around great place to mine around level 35. Common ores here are Copper, tin, zinc, iron, and silver. Rare ores are iron, flint stones, and most importantly, your main money makers, Gold and Darksteel. You should keep mining here until around 40.

Gusgen Mines- This is a very confusing area, so it is a good idea to do the quest to get the map before you go and in case you get lost, its a good idea to pick up a scroll of instant warp for 750 conquest points at the gate guard.

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/quests.html?realm=Bastok&fquest=11]

When you get to be around 40, you can come here and mine the upper level, and around 45 you can mine the lower levels. Here, you can get copper, tin, zinc, and iron easily. The harder drops to get are Silver, Gold, Darksteel, and you can also get colored stones. You can get a different colored stone depending on the day of the week.

Firesday- Red stone
Iceday- Translucent stone
Windsday- Green Stone
Earthsday- Yellow stone
Lightningday- Purple stone
Watersday- Blue stone
Lightsday- White stone
Darksday- Black stone

You can pretty much just mine in Gusgen as long as you want, but if you decide you want something more exciting, you could always try Ifrit's Cauldron. Load up on silent oils and Prism powders when you go and try to avoid anything that moves. Note that a whm cant just go in and sneak/invisible themself, there are bombs there that will aggro by magic. It's a pretty dangerous, but if you get an Adaman ore, it will be worth it. They sell for 80k-100k.

~Mining Strategy~
you should always buy or quest for the map of an area you are going to mine in. When you find a mining point, mark it down in your markers on the map, this will help you to memorize all of the points in the area. When you start to memorize all of the points, plan a route to travel. Try to plan it so that you pass as many mining points as possible in the shortest ammount of time. Travel around your route and pick up as much ore as possible. When you fill up your inventory, filter out things like pebbles, flint stones, or copper ores in order to make room for more expensive ores. I would just repeat this until you are out of pickaxes and have a full inventory. At this point, just return to town and put your ores up at the AH. It will also be helpful to have 1 or 2 extra characters to send items to so you can have a maximum of 21 items selling at the AH at once, this will greatly speed up the process. That's pretty much all you need to know to start mining, I hope this helped you. Good luck everyone!

NOTICE
As a side note to all you miners, when you sell ores, check the price history and please dont undercut prices in order to make your items sell faster. This will just hurt you in the long run. As a result of people undercutting, i have seen the price of darksteel ore drop from 8k-5k. So everyone please...dont undercut.

Edited, Fri Aug 13 03:14:26 2004

Can Any1 tell me wat does Mythril Seam Does, when i dig, i got mine gravel, can any1 tell me is there any other ore u can dig up from it??

Alright, my friend asked me to make a stack of pickaxes for him. So im like hey i never thought about crafting these... (Ignorant Miner by the way). Heres what I came up with..
Stack of fire = 2000
Maple Lumber stack= 1000
Stack of Bronze Ingots= 4000

All together it costs me 7K to make a 1 stack of pickaxes. Thats ridiculous I think square made a boo boo and instead of this synth giving one I think the synth should yield 12. So dont bother crafting this.

43 Fishing 30 AuSmithing 26 Smithing
7 Woodworking 9 Cooking 4 Clothcrafting

Edited, Sat Jul 3 17:38:30 2004

for mining maps and logging points and stuff i found a good site...http://cannotlinkto/ffxi/ place is awesome just fyi!!

Why does this have the same synth recipe as Hatchet?

Im sure this is somewhere else, but whats the name of the equipment that increases your mining abilities? i figured it would be miners .... etc, but no luck :'(

Anyone know good places to go dig up some ore? I've been considering mining while i gilfarm in PalMines, but other than that area, where can i go?

how many times can you use a pickaxe before it breaks or something. Its mentioned earlier but no one said.

I have seen a chart that shows what items can be gained from Harvesting, Logging, and Mining, and where. Now, of course, Ican't seem to find it. anyone know wher eit is or a good place to look?

Do these mining points show up in wide scan?

What is a decent macro to use for mining? I can't figure it out and I can't use the pickaxe without going through the stupid drop doen list command system.

I have found mining points, but when I try to use my pickaxe on them it always says the target is out of range. Once I detect a target...how do I tell exactly where it is?