I've never read anything on crafting, all I did was go through the briefcase and read the blueprints to figure what you needed to do.
It's quite simple actually. I've crafted a few hats already. :awe:
Essentially just read the blueprint of what you want to make (most take some amount of refined metal) and go from there.
Once you start dragging items over from your backpack to the crafting grid, it will highlight which blueprints you can use.
In the end it's a lot of breaking down weapons into scrap, combining 3 scrap into reclaimed metal, then combining 3 reclaimed into refined. After that you typically use 3 or 4 refined metal and maybe a class or slot token, depending on what you want to build.
KT