I've recently started a 2H warrior who is uses smithing as a way to make money and gear. I'm looking for tips on how to level smithing effectivly without power leveling. If I leave it up to just making gear I need, it will never level.

Dumb question I know but any help would be great, thanks!

transmute mineral ore, make gold jewelry and stash up on all ingots of the side of the tree you want to go up and make arrows with any beyond what you need for your actual gear.

If you're playing on PC you could get a mod that allows you to get XP from smelting, using the tanning rack, sharpening stone and workbench. You can also get a mod that lets you smith arrows so you will use the ability often if you character is an archer.

My characters who smith simply carry a pickaxe with them, and dig up any ore they find. Then they next time they are in town they smelt them and make things to sell. There is zero cost, you make a little profit, and steadily improve your skill.

vals crafting melt down mod - allows you to break down alll armors and weapons and other such misc crafting gear.

Don't fall in the forge

Also, there is a gold mine near markarth, mine it dry and make jewelery

Try plundering a dwemer ruin and taking as many dwarven metal items you can carry, smelt them down and smith with the ingots you get from them

Should have mentioned I'm on 360 so no mods and as much as I would love to use the transmute spell, no magic. I'm RP a nord warrior and he would never use something so silly....

Just make armor and improve them, don't forget jewelry too.

As another poster mentioned, carry a pickaxe and empty every mine you come across. Kolskeggr mine has loads of gold - great for jewelry, the mine at shors stone has ebony, and dwemer ruins are great for dwemer metal - just get everything that doesn't start with the word 'dwemer'. For example, bent dwemer scrap metal is smeltable, dwemer scrap metal isn't. The exception to this is 'small dwemer lever'.

I find making bows to be the best, they require the least metal (apart from daggers) but yield a good amount of xp.

If you have dwarven smithing perk, make and improve lots of dwarven bows. you can get lots of dwarven ingots from smelting down scrap metal you find in dwemer ruins. Don't forget to improve each bow you make, you get more experience from improving than making a new one.

If you are going up the left side of the smithing tree, make lots of steel plate armor. You will still make profit if you buy all the raw materials from the blacksmith.

Don't forget the warrior stone plus being well rested. 30% bonus with those two things.

I had a lot of success making Steel Plate Armor and then upgrading it and selling it. This requires going down the light armor path, but if you are taking smithing just to get to Dragonplate armor, then I reccomend it. Making Steel Plate takes 1 Conundrum ingot, 3 Steel Ingots, and Leather Strips (I think). All these materials are really easy to buy from smiths and you get about half a skil point for making it and then upgrading it (or maybe a whole point, I don't know exactly but it leveled fast for me). You can then turn around and sell the armor right back to the smith you just bought materials from and more than make your money back.

I'm going up the right side. I'm warring heavy armor...