As several of us have pointed out, there's nothing requiring people to do that, outside of an obsessive need to powerlevel, min/max, powergame. Many of us have leveled Smithing off the materials we found in the world.


Which has a multitude of advantages.... trying to find more stuff is yet more reason to explore caves/mines/mountains, it gives a slower progression to the skill so that you don't end up with the whole "OMG, I got Smithing to 100 at level 12! I'm either overpowered (my gear squishes everything) or underpowered (all the enemies are too high level for my tiny combat abilities)!", etc.

I've found that Dwarven Waraxes are the best. I'll make Hide Bracers to get to Dwarven, but after that you need only one trip through a Dwarven ruin and all the iron you can find. That'll get you to 100 in no time.

Hide or Leather braces, iron daggers and gold/silver rings until you're about to fall in your face. That's how you do it. Its a shame its like that, but it is. I wish it were like Alchemy where a more complicated item would give you a greater skill increase.

Well no, but it does increase from recharging magic weapons.

I found a way that doesn't feel like cheating/grinding. I improve all the armour I find on bandits and the like before selling it (To maximise profitssss). Because improving items levels up slower than making items, it doesn't catapult you to 100 in an unnatural time and doesn't feel forced.

I say all, but only the stuff that will benefit. No iron daggers, just the things that value goes up enough to affect the sales price by more than the materials required for the upgrade.

I just go hunting around whiterun, collect a boatload of hides, tan them into leather, and leather strips, and then make leather armor pieces. Materials are free, smithing goes up, and you make some coin. (not that you really need the coin....)

Do a roleplay. I know you have armor already and since you can't repair it, you can RP that after a couple of days of fighting that the armor is worn. Sell it and make the same armour.

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It would be nice if Bethesda patched smithing so no one can "powergame" it by making 1000 iron daggers. Instead it should be that the only way to increase smithing is to improve armor/items. And you can only improve 1 item of each type. And armor/items will degrade to original quality only during combat.
So if you make a dagger, smithing will not go up. But if you improve the dagger, smithing will go up. You can make all the daggers you want, but smithing will not go up and you can't gain knowledge skill by initially improving any more daggers than your first one. (after you originally improved a dagger, that knowledge can not be relearned)

However, items/armour will degrade when you fight, so you can improve them again and gain knowledge on fixing things worn in different ways.

Sure, there's nothing requiring people to do anything. Play how you want. On a long enough time line, the survival rate is 0%. On a long enough time line, you can level blacksmithing up to 100 by finding materials in the world. There is nothing obsessive about buying low and selling high though, or wanting our gear in line with what vendors are selling. Or buying materials and selling an item crafted from those material at a profit. The process just isn't done very well in Skyrim, if you want to use smithing to keep up with the game. By mid 20's vendors have not only ebony ore and malachite ore, but they have armor and weapons of the same type. Those of us who want to also have smithing in line with that are going to have to grind or obsess over killing every animal and finding every ore vein.

+100

I've only ever done serious smithing with a single character (and even then, only went up the light side to Glass) and all my smithing was done alongside Adrienne "helping her with her quota for the Imperial Legion". I avoided Iron daggers, but cranked out Iron swords, Leather armor and Imperial Steel armor. I took my time at it and went and bought the occasional round of smithing training from the various trainers. Hit level 70 in smithing around character level 30. It felt pretty natural and I didn't feel "dirty" on the inside.

It's stupid how, almost anytime you enchant, your skill goes up by one. But when you smith, you have to smith something like 10 armors before one point raise. Plus you definitely don't need 10 armors, but you could use 10 enchantments. These two aren't balanced at all, even though the processes are pretty similar. Enchantment goes up too easily, while with smiething, lots of needless work is required. Alchemy is pretty good in between I think. Of course it's even slower than smithing, but at least you can use those potions and poisons you create, and they don't require as lot as making an armor.

Exactly Nelacayne. Looks like you use what you find and level smithing, which is almost pointless from a combat perspective because vendors will have better gear for sale then you can make for easily over half the game level wise, or buy ore and grind iron "something". It's not natural, especially considering 90% of what we craft we're not going to use. Investing in a mine seems the way to go, the more you invest, the more ore you get. That way, we don't need to loot every dwarven scrap metal, mine every vein, and kill every deer. Which, regardless of what the "natural blacksmith levelers" will have you believe is every bit as obsessive as grinding out iron. But it would make selling the 90% we don't use more believable as we hone our skill and operate more like a real blacksmith. Instead of this super smith who goes out and gathers every resource possible for his/her craft and then becomes this legendary smith.

WHAT? Okay, here's you're point: I should be able to infinitely upgrade my existing armor to the cap without DOING anything to improve that skill other than improve the same armor over and over again. YOU are creating that closed loop, not Skyrim. Enchanting is not improved by wielding enchanted items, but rather by "recharging" them using a soul gem (that is consumed). Yes, items are infinitely "rechargable". To have the same thing for smithing, you'd NEED the same thing enchanting has - degradation. Since armor and weapons do not degrade, you need to learn that skill elsewhere. It's not "power grinding". Look. You're out on an adventure. You see a deer. You shoot said deer with your crappy old hunting bow that you use ONLY for hunting. You skin it, you grab up the venison. Do you just sell the hide? WHY? You want to improve as a smith, why aren't you smithing it (and any other materials you gather)? IF you approach it reasonably, without spamming daggers or helms or bracers or whatever, smithing will increase at a reasonable rate. If you want to be a level 20 blacksmith, by all means, spam away. If not, dabble. Seems PERFECTLY reasonable to me. After all, there are quite a number of skills (one-hand, two-hand, armors, destruction, etc.) that will NEVER improve if NOT used in a practical situation.

There are ore piles all over the place. Just spend some time scouring the tundra around Whiterun and you'll see what i mean

I don't usually craft new items, but improve my smithing skill by upgrading some of the armor and weapons I loot from enemies I kill and then selling these improved items to the merchants for extra money.
If I upgrade some looted leather armor before selling it I earn between half and twice more selling it. That is quite a useful bit of extra gold at lower levels.

If you want metal for smithing, just go around all the mines and Dwemer ruins. There are loads of them. But I think it is more fun to hunt deer and other animals and make the skins into leather bracers. However, hunting can be difficult for pure melee characters -- unless you like running madly after deer trying to hit them with a warhammer. Bears and things will still attack you, but for pure melee it is easier to supplement that with mining.

I just like roaming the wilderness and trying to get arrow shots off at deer & other animals from a long distance. You come across random encounters and stuff that doesn't have map markers (cave-like shelters, shrines, altars, etc. that tell a little story) also when you are wandering. Then just make leather armor. It is not hard work.

No smith in history every became a master without making lots of stuff to practice or to sell. A "masterpiece" means an excellent piece of crafting that you make to qualify to become a "master" in a guild. So when you get to 100 make something cool and put it on display in your house.

It increases from recharging an enchanted weapon.

It's because soul gems are rare and they cost an arm and a leg. Iron and leather are cheap as dirt and are everywhere in huge quantities.

It's called "balancing out"...