Reading through several posts I found that there isn't much useful info so I will try and help.
First you can only become a tradeskill person for things you can use. Runemasters cannot train armorsmithing for example.
Go to your trainer (located in Jord.... Get a map you WILL need it later!) Talk to him he will allow you to start crafting.
In the skills section of your character bar, are a variety of icons for the various tradeskills. Take the icons over to a your hot bar slot and drop it into a spot. Click on the icon and it will reveal all the various types of items you can make. As your skill goes up you can make more items.
If your primary skill is armorcrafting you must raise armorcrafting before any secondary skills will increase. Primary skills are: Armorcrafting, Weaponcrafting, Fletching, and Tailoring. Secondary skills are: Leatherworking, clothworking, metalworking, woodworking. I am not sure were Siegecraft is in this I believe it follows seperate rules.
Other Primary skills can only be 75% as high as your chosen career path. IE if you are a tailor skill 100 your armorcraft, weaponcraft, fletching can only go up to 75. Your secondary skills can raise up to the same level as your chosen career path.
As a armorcrafter I often increased my skill in metalcraft, clothworking, leatherworking, and Armorcraft making one armor piece. You need to keep your secondary skills high because to make Mithril studded armor you need a clothworking skill of ~480. Even though my armorcraft was at 530 and the mithril studded conned blue for me to make, I was unable to do it until I raised my clothworking. You cannot find info on what secondary skills you need to make a piece but if your trainer stops giving you tasks for that type of armor, chances are you can no longer make it because you lack a secondary skill.
As your skills increase more items become available for you to make. The chance for your primary skill to raise is dependant on what the item cons:
Green - Not very good
Blue Fair chance for Primary skill to raise, good chance for secondary skill.
Yellow, excellent chance for all skills to raise
Orange Superb chance for all skills to raise.
Red - Do not try unless you are desperate.
I rarely lost items from failing to make an item if it conned Orange or less. For Red con items the amount of material I lost made it silly to even attempt.
Also the higher your skill gets, the less frequent it will raise. Early on in my career yellow conned items raised my skills 95% of the time. Now (skill 540 Armorcraft) a yellow con item will raise my Primary skill approx 30% of the time.
To buy your supplies look for a merchant. Most merchants will be weapon merchants or armor merchants look for the ones that just say -Merchant. I use Falla, and Om the most for armorcrafting. Both are located in seperate houses near the forge and weaponsmith, armorcraft masters. Ottar sells woodcraft stuff, Gro sells cloth stuff, Dala sells fletching supplies and I believe there is one or two more. These merchants sell the sewing kits, smith hammers you need so don't pull your hair out looking for them :)
Making money!! Get your skill to about 100 (should cost you about 1 gold) Then go to your trainer and say task. He will tell you to make a blue yellow or orange item and deliver it to someone in town. That person will pay you money once you deliver the item.
Quality items. Merchants sell 85% quality items. You make 90 - 95% quality items for blue, yellow and orange con items. The person you deliver the item to will pay you more for the higher quality item.
90% quality you loose a little bit of money.
91% on up you make money every task you do.
Quality: Not positive but have heard that the higher the quality the better the item is. More damage for weapons more protection for armor.
Green items your quality will be 90-100% I believe. I know that gray con items I often make at 98 and 99% quality.
I have read that experience tasks and tradeskill tasks interfere with each other, I am not positive of this. I do know that at level 17 I have done approximately 700 tasks. (I heard that at 17 you get 17 experience tasks. However if you have done 16 tradeskill tasks then you would only be able to do 1 experience task. However the solution is to do all your experience tasks and then begin the tradeskill tasks. I however just did not bother with experience tasks :)
SAVE YOUR MONEY. At every 100 points you see your tradeskill master and begin to get tasks for the next level of metal. It gets very expensive when you are making alloy and then begin to make fine alloy weapons. (I had ALL of my money tied up in supplies and was selling my equipment to pay for the supplies I needed to do the next task.)
Finally all of the chain armor requires leather armor and metal wire (wire is made with metalworking skill.) All of the leather armor you need to make chain is sold by the various mercants IN Jord.
It takes a LONG time to earn money through tradeskills, however you never have to sell to other people if you do not want to. Unlike EQ you can make money from tradeskills if you are patient.
I recomend having 2 gold to start out with.
and please... When people beg for money 'JUST SAY NO.' Make them earn it, I hate seeing people beg repeatedly for cash. They are in my realm it is a shame I can't kill them for harrassing me.
On the other hand.. those items you no longer use or need, especially quest items (that sell for 1 copper to a merchant)... give them to newbies who aren't begging for cash. Remember helping your realm mates makes your realm stronger. Death to Albion! Death to Hibernia! :)
Korvock – “Buy MY Goods!”
540 Armorcrafting