User blog comment:SharkMoon6621/Smithing!!!/@comment-184.100.217.187-20130318033750

Well, here's how I got my Smithing skill up to 100 in about 2 hours (Xbox with Dawnguard and Hearthfire installed).

1.  The most important thing you can do is boost your XP gain: activate the Warrior Stone, get married (for the Lover's Comfort bonus), and get a good night's sleep (for the Well Rested bonus) before you do any kind of skill-building.

2.  When you first start out, buy all of the iron ingots and leather you can find. Iron ingots have a base price of 7gp, which can then be forged into 10gp worth of nails. You can then resell them, or keep them for your homestead (you will *always* need nails.)

Use the leather and leather straps to make leather bracers...spending 16gp worth of ingredients to make a 25gp item. You can improve them at a workbench using one more piece of leather, which improves their cost (and their XP return), but this is only worth it if you have some Fortify Smithing potions or equipment...otherwise, you are better off just saving that leather to make more leather bracers.

3.  Keep spamming these two things until your Smithing is at least 30, and take the Dwarven Smithing perk. Once you have this perk, you will never need to pay for ingredients ever again. One trip to a Dwemer ruin (especially Mzulft or Raldbthar) will give you more dwarven metal than you can carry...smelt this down into Dwarven Ingots, and use them to make Dwarven Crossbows that are worth 350gp each (5 ingots = 1 crossbow).

Or you can combine them with firewood (also free) and turn each ingot into 96gp worth of Dwarven Arrows...they do a decent amount of damage, can be sold for 4gp each, and are completely weightless (you can literally carry thousands of them without affecting your carrying capacity, and then sell them a handful at a time whenever you need the coin.)

The metal in the dwarven ruins will respawn after a few days. So between travel time and resting up (remember, you want those Well Rested and Lover's Comfort bonuses), you are almost guaranteed a steady stream of free raw materials any time you want them if you alternate between two or three different ruins.

4.  Settle into your routine. Travel to a ruin, load up with metal, fast-travel home, load up on firewood, rest with your spouse, smelt the metal, make crossbows and arrows, sell crossbows and arrows. Travel to a ruin, load up with metal, fast-travel home, etc., etc. Repeat over and over until your smithing is 99...then walk up to the Skyforge and read the Skill Book sitting next to the forge to kick it to 100.