Being wrote:
...but during the, what, hour it took to craft the +2 ingot you could run around and do other things?
I think that you're supposed to be able to do that. I tried it once and logged out while it was in queue. The items vanished from queue and the original materials were gone as well. Tried another time with not logging out and just running around. Lost them again. Someone said if you died you lost them, but I don't recall if I died or not. So I did it the painstakingly slow way and sat by the craft facility while the items were made.
When I started the sword and it showed 12 hours to finish I just left myself logged in over night and hopped for the best.