proftorcolgy here, As a miner and smith in my own mind, let me tell you: The first levels you want to mine everything yourself, I recomend steel as soon as you can. You will probably level up once maybe twice per 100 bars or so. But that runs out fast, so relish it. For the lower levels, up to about 50 you may want to join one of those smelting companies, or do what the above person said about selling bars. Smithing will be the slow difficult one, mining is cake.