You probably have already discovered this simple little trick. When your able to mine without the need of a torch in your other hand, equip a lesser valued tool in that hand instead. Then after your second hit with your gem tool simply finish off the block with your cheaper tool since any tool will only require 1 more hit. You literally save 33% of damage that would have been inflicted on your gem tool. ITS SO SIMPLE 
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Assuming your lesser tool can break the block you are hitting*
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Yes that is True.
But when I’m mining out a large area and want it done ASAP I usually just use gem tools. This method just makes them last longer.
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Give silver alloy tools a try- same number of hits, quite plentiful and cheaper on spark and fossil extract. Same technique will work!
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Will still need to find the durability comparisons. But the way cheaper production, makes it seem like silver is the way to go.
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Omg I must try this. I’ve been wondering what took to start making since I’m skipping iron made tools (except for grapples) I just found silver, gold and titanium …Can’t mine titanium tho. Thanks for the tips!
You can’t completely skip iron to make Silver tools though. Iron is needed to make Silver Alloy, but you can skip iron to make gold tools; copper is needed to make gold alloy. And, I think you need gold to mine titanium, if I am not mistaken. I have not tried mining titanium with silver.
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Thanks for this information. I did a lot of mining yesterday and this no doubt saved a lot of gem tools.
I was using a stack of copper hammers in one hand, and a couple emerald in the other.
I’m wondering if it’d be possible to do this the other way around with certain tool combinations? Meaning; two hits from an iron tool and one from a gem. That’d save 66% on your gem tools.
I’ll repost with more information after testing.
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I have mined titanium with iron hammers …yes slower but can do
eh… you necroed a 2 yr old thread. The needing silver/gold to mine titanium thing was only in beta, which is over now. That info is no longer valid. Now, you can mine even Gems with stone tools, given maybe it will take numerous hits.
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Assuming your stone hammer does enough damage to get past the armour of the t5-6 gem block. 
Not exactly related to this, but I always found critical damage on tools a bit weird. If you know that you need three hits to brake a rock, you can get on a semiautomatic mode like left, left, right, left, left, right and so on. But when you get a critical it brakes the pace. I don’t know, I don’t like it.
But yes, is a good tip.
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Lol i do agree.i do use above iron hammers .but it is possible