The Quartz Grind Stone provides a low tech solution for getting more out of your mining trips. It is much cheaper than its more high-tech counter parts that other mods provide, but it is slow and a considerable time sink, but what else do you have to do while smelting those ores? Why not grind up some other ores into dusts?

Dusts

Applied Energistics adds Iron Dust and Gold Dust, Nether Quartz Dust and Flour in additional to Certus Quartz Dust for its own world gen. By smelting dusts instead of raw resources you can get twice as much output for your ores. and reduce the amount of Wheat to make bread.

Setting up the Quartz Grind Stone

Its pretty easy to get started, first craft your self 1 of each of the Quartz Grind Stone and the Wooden Crank

Once you have that set the Grinder Block on the ground. Then put the Wooden Crank in your hand like you would a pick-axe, the right click on the grinder, to install the crank, make sure you have an empty block above the grinder or it won't fit. Once installed it goes from looking like the above right image, to the one on the right.

Using the Grind Stone

Add ores / crystals into the bottom block's top left slotsto be grinded, and right clicking on the crank to grind the ores. if there are no more items left to grind the crank will stop turning, if you try to use the crank to many times when its empty the crank will snap, and drop a few sticks.

Ore Dictionary and Other Mod Support

You can configure which ores can be processed in the quartz grindstone via the config by specifiying their ore dictionary name, AE will always use the default 1 ore -> 2 dust ration for this however, its up to you to ensure that this is blanced. By default it includes the basic setup.

Recipe

Without Buildcraft:

With Buildcraft: