Shield smithing

Description

Skill gained while creating and improving both metal and wooden shields. Influences the success ratio and the quality of the outcome.

Make sure you have a miner that can mine up to 200kg worth of lumps per day
Make large amounts of shields: 20 small shields, 20 medium shields and 20 large shields or whatever amount you wish.
Work in batches. If several items need a whetstone and a few need a pelt, use the whetstone first, then move onto using the pelt (minor time saver).

Try to make shields for which you already have skills. (e.g., if you have ground shield skill on large iron shields, make them.) It appears to be easier to improve this way.
Obtain CoC tools (specifically, whetstone and pelt, possibly lump) if you can, as they help enormously.
Small shields use less material and give excellent skill until 35 or so.
You can improve a shield to 20ql at ~5 shieldsmithing, but you can only improve up to 40 at 35+ shieldsmithing.