How am i supposed to afford this...

Obsidian flux, Obsidian sandpaper, going for 2+ gold a pop on my server, how am i supposed to afford this shit to go through all the materials i have that needs refining xD and whats worse apparently the one tool i thought i could eventually get (the material converter which is btw, still listed in the trading post...) to at least be able to convert excess of one to the other is not available anymore? Why?!

Having to do supply runs just to be able to make some fucking planks is damn annoying, im already spending so much time gathering the materials as is cant we at least have a way to make the crafting easier...