Problem with Blacksmithing

[kaygee]

I'm new to the server, but not new to the game. I played for many years about 10+ years ago.
Every character I've ever had was a blacksmith and I wanted to continue the trend. However, I'm having a lot of difficulty here. Over the past week or so, I've smithed thousands of ingots, yet my blacksmith skill hasn't even gone up .1
It's very frustrating. I was just wondering if there's a possible glitch in the system or something. I realize that blacksmithy has always been a slow moving skill, but this is just insane.
Any help is appreciated

[Ragancy]

I GMed Blacksmith a few weeks ago. It took a lot of ingots (at least 40,000 not including smelting).

Something like cutlass (55-63), kryss (63-73), short spear (73-88), then gorgets all the way to GM.

Make sure you are creating the right item for your skill level - there are better guides than the one I laid out but that will give you a start

[kaygee]

Did you just re-smelt everything you made?
I considered doing that, but then you sacrifice $$ as well.
Thanks for the rough guide. I've been making kite shields, I guess I'll try the cutlass as that's what is in my range.

[Ragancy]

I smelted everything with an alt char that started with 50 mining (higher the mining, more ingots per smelt). You can gain mining up to 72 from smelting.

I did not resell anything as I bought all the ingots up front and didn't want to waste time as I was running a macro for smithing/smelting. But if you're going to sell, then I hear chain coifs are the best bet...not sure about the skill level required for those.

[Theograd]

I'd recommend GMing your mining first if you're going to work towards GM Smithing via the smelting route. You save yourself a lot of ingots in the long run.

Also, making weapons with color ingots and then smelting them turn them to iron so don't feel like you have to just use iron.

[Panthor the Hated]

Theo's right, but when I did it I didn't mine at all and found that that the ceiling for mining gains from smelting is 66.6. That was cool to learn.

[SJane3384]

I'd recommend GMing your mining first.

Or just getting it to 70 and locking it. Once you get to higher levels, you end up getting lots of colored ore, which you might not be able to use yet. So leaving it at 70 until you GM smithing and THEN raising it is slightly better, IMO.

[Panthor the Hated]

gming is best for smelting returns