It's going to be a rather long grind tbh. I have a DoW at 40 and I'm still having trouble squeezing out the last 2 levels for my MIN. Leves make leveling tolerable, without them you're going to be mining for weeks. Try to get to at least 30-35 so you can get the Quarrymill leves, they should help you get to 40 or so before the xp dwindles.

Just a note, if you're doing evaluation leves at a much higher level that the leve itself, the number added to the eval by BOTH items will decrease, making it almost impossible to get the xp bonus.