?

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1489624-best-way-to-grind-smithing/

thanks!

I found that making Dwarven Bows was very effective.

Dive through a Dwemer ruin, take all the scrap metal with you.

Refine scrap metal into dwarven ingots and buy iron ingots for cheap at merchants.

Mass produce bows and sell them (and the other loot you find in the ruins) for a decent profit.

Levels up your smithing right fast as well as your character in general.

I transmute gold ore to silver to gold...make bars...find gems...make jewelry...enchant jewelry...sell for septims.

Grinds smithing...transmutation...enchanting...speechcraft.

Works for me...your mileage may vary.

Making arrows works for me, not that I try to grind, but it levels my Smithing up quite quickly.

Hearthfire. Nails, locks, hinges. all count towards smithing. I'm pretty sure I went up a good 8 or 9 smithing levels building one home.

Related question, I presume it's better to use material to make things (assuming you have all the parts) rather than improve things? E.g. if I have a load of dwemer and iron ingots, I should keep making bows until I run out, rather than making a certain number of bows and saving some of the dwemer metal to improve them, if I want to get the most bang for my smithing buck?

I tend to go with the latter anyway because I've usually been trying to level enchanting as well, and you do better at that if you're enchanting a more expensive item, but my current character won't be enchanting much, if at all, so I presume it would be better to just concentrate on making stuff while I have the materials to do so?

What is the best way?

The fastest one, the one with the minimal amount of materials needed, the one which generates the highest amount of money, the one which produces the most useful items? Another one with a different goal in mind?