I've been looking at the Forge Domain's Channel Divinity ability, Artisan's Blessing, and I really just can't figure out how this is anything more than a situationally useful ability at best.

Taking an hour to use a bunch of random metal to create a single metal item of equal value seems remarkably weak compared to basically every other Channel Divinity power there is.  Am I reading it wrong?  Because all I can see using it for is if you're somehow thrown into a prison with metal bars on your cell and the guards didn't confiscate your holy symbol and then left you alone for a couple hours or you suddenly find yourself feeling exposed in a dungeon after a rust monster ate your chainmail but have a bunch of gold coins on you.

Yeah, it’s not so great. Being able to make a set of tools or the key they mention in the description can be useful in some cases, but it’s not that exciting. You could maybe use it to counterfeit metal on nexts, but again not often. 
But then lots of classes have powers like this that are not at all useful, until that one time they are, and then they can really save the day. 

There are definitely people who want to play this class. Myself included. I think it's a cool ability because at level 2 you could theoretically piece together plate armor after roughly 15 channels, absorbing irons and metals from the surrounding environment. It's a creative outlet for out of box thinkers rather than power gamers.

Just because you might prefer something more akin to Life or Grave, because it's straight forward doesn't mean it's a bad class. You shouldn't knock things down because they're there for other people not like yourself. People choose the class they want to play, and these subclasses were created from creators who wanted to play in this direction. Really unless we're homebrewing everything, we're just borrowing ideas from other great minds.

Dude, questioning the usefulness of a single class power that's extremely situational is not the same as insulting the domain, telling people they shouldn't play it, or knocking it down.

I used it to craft my own armor (we started at with limited gold rather than starting equipment). It was nice to be able to jump to chain mail quick. Other times I've used it to transform the inevitable pile of goblin axes directly into gold trade bars. We track encumbrance so it's much easier to not worry about loading the refuse onto the cart to trade for pennies in town.

Roleplaying wise, I've used the channel divinity to pick up work in the local smith shop. I use the power to turn a little profit and ingratiate myself to the proprietors. Also, my cleric is on a mission from Moradin to restore order in the world. Part of that is transforming useless scrap into items for the community (new plow for the farmer, fortification for the city wall, outfitting the city guard with spears, etc.).

Is it as powerful as say the light or grave domain channels? No. But I use it to round out my character's purpose in life and adventuring.

Those sound like interesting options.

One house rule I've toyed with for the power is to remove the one item limit when using it, so that you could crank out enough spears or arrows to arm a village ahead of an orc warband's attack or produce an entire set of basic weapons and armor for someone in one go.

That's how we've been running it. So long as it stays under 100g. 

My god, the number of ball bearings I can make. I'll have to do that some time!

The primary use of this the cleric at my table does is just to convert however much random recovered weapons. armor, scrap, whatever into 100gp per day. The other use was one time he got a good look at a teleportation circle and he used his channel divinity to create a medallion in its exact appearance so that later on, the sorcerer could cast the spell and go to that circle. I thought that was pretty clever.

I struggled with this as well. I think it requires a change in the way you think about items in the game. "You must lay out metal.."  So I don't think you can convert a locked metal door into a gold bar, but you can convert a large steel create that may be blocking a path into something to unblock you. You can forge a crowbar from a prison tray to gain advantage on breaking the bars. Maybe turn a nail into a garotte? Basically, you need to be a little Magneto and always been looking for metal.

Also the use of "item" in this context doesn't mean "single" in my eyes. For instance, in dnd ball bearings (to use former example) is an item, not items. A pack of arrows is an item, not items. Hell, armor (the example they give) composed of many parts, and considered an item. So I wouldn't get hung up about that too much.

That being said, losing a powerful slot for something that can't be used in encounters does really suck a bit. They should make up for it by making us proficient in martial weapons at least so we can use a Warhammer or something that hits a bit harder. It would help in low levels when all you got is turning horse shoes into ball bearers.

You actually don't need your holy symbol to perform the artist's blessing.

 Way to miss the point.

I know doesn't answer the question, but there really is almost no benefit to this feature.

My Forge Cleric has used it to make gifts for most of the party he's with.

A wonderfully sculpted shield, with holy symbol emblazoned in it, for the Paladin.  A silver pegasus for the Ranger to remind her of her animal companion.  A helmet and some pauldrons for the elven Fighter, with intricate leaf patterns on it.

I'm sure there'll be more to come, but if your group roleplays any and you learn little tidbits about your other player's back stories, there's limitless potential for gifts there.

I don't the see the need here of this Domain.... unless you are a DWARF .

Quote from Dertinus >>

I don't the see the need here of this Domain.... unless you are a DWARF .

Dwarves are probably the race that instantly comes to mind when you think of forging, but all races are capable of worshipping a forge god/goddess.

If we were to use your mindset, then only Halflings should be Rogues, Elves as all ranged characters, and all Half-Orcs should be Barbarians, for example.

Sure, there's stereotypes in D&D, but there's also creative versatility.  Sometimes breaking the mould is quite fun.

Play what you like, and don't feel compelled to be pigeonholed into a particular race/class combination.

Then, I see here this is like a character who likes to be more an NPC, instead of being a character who like s to adventuring / kill stuff / dungeonering / etc etc etc.

It's limited and situational, but it can be a really handy and flavorful feature depending on the campaign your DM is running.

Need components for Revivify? Channel divinity a couple times for some spare diamond rings. Keeping track of ammunition? Your ranger never has to worry about running low. Wanna enchant your own magical items? Cut down on time and cost by modifying objects you find. The feature may not stack up against other domain boons, but it definitely rewards creativity and utility builds. 

I'm playing a forge cleric now, and I'm really enjoying it. Tons of flavour. If I was just power-gaming, maybe I wouldn't like it, but he's effectively the tank, the dwarven shield for the rest of the party. Like one of the previous posters said, I've been making gifts for the rest of the party, including based on objects found in our adventures: claws mounted into necklaces of things another character slayed, items we found recast into more useful things (but still kind of reminders of crucial battles). The character has a very low charisma -- I've basically given up on attempting persuasion rolls and the like -- so I sort of play it like he's a bit shy and gruff and sort of shows affection through gifts. 

His backstory is that he's older than a normal adventurer, and used to be both a miner and blacksmith. Married to a woman from a higher status dwarf family, the combination of his not being successful enough and hearing whispers from Moradin calling him to take up the hammer for the fair, he wound up divorced and persona non grata in his home.

However, I am butting up against the limits of the channel divinity ability. So what I've been cooking up with my DM is a bit of a homebrew around the ability that will allow for it to do more stuff, especially creating useful items. It's pushing me towards creating an actual blacksmithy and then thinking about teaming up with local wizards, gnome artificers, etc. to do high-end, special order equipment. Since he's a cleric, can't be for profit -- has to be something consistent with Moradin's mission. But multi-day projects, high-end pre-magical items that can be enchanted by others, and prestige symbolic goods for the noble member of the party to give as gifts to other dignitaries to seal alliances, etc. I'm hoping that it can become a whole nexus for our campaign -- the people who come in, asking for special things that they need made, or rumours of sources of materials that would be useful to turn into special objects. 

IMO while Artisans blessing is one of the weaker channel divinities, blessing of the forge is one of the strongest so it balances out, at least until everyone in the party has magic weapons and swords from other means.

THE group I am a light cleric with use the UA channel divinity that allows you to regain a first level spell slot. This make the domain CD less important as you always have a use for CD.

Quote from Jegpeg >>

IMO while Artisans blessing is one of the weaker channel divinities, blessing of the forge is one of the strongest so it balances out, at least until everyone in the party has magic weapons and swords from other means.

 Agreed, Blessing of the Forge is clutch. I rolled a 9 in Constitution, so the free +1 to AC is literally a lifesaver.