There is an additional use for the Helm, Armor and Shield recipes on this page which is called ebugging a piece of armor. This form of Gambling is much more common throughout Diablo 2 since everyone uses a Runeword or two and it isn't always possible to find the item you want with the amount of Sockets you want. IE, you can never make a 3 Socket Shrunken Head since they only ever allow 2. Using one of the recipes on this page will allow you to add a random amount of Sockets to an item, keep in mind you can only add as many Sockets as the item allows.
Gambling For Sockets With Horadric Cube - Diablo 2
