Smithing

Smithing is a production skill where a player crafts useful metal items from raw materials. Smithing is considered one of the most profitable skills as players can make excellent profits from selling their bars. Because of this, smithing is also one of the more popular skills.

Smithing actually incorporates two distinct processes. The first, Smelting, is the process of taking raw ore obtained from the Mining skill and purifying it into a solid metal bar. The title process, Smithing, is the process in which the player forges one or more metal bars into a metal item using an anvil.

Smelting
For a list of furnaces, see Furnace

Smelting is the process of extracting a metal bar from a metal ore. Ore can be obtained using the Mining skill. To obtain a metal bar, a player must use an ore of the desired metal on a furnace. Some metals require different kinds of ore, and smelting some metals require coal to be added to the furnace to raise the furnace's temperature.

Players can perform the smelting action by two different ways. One way is to use one of the ores for a bar on the furnace. Other required ores are automatically added to the furnace from the player's inventory. The other way, faster for bulk smelting, is to click on the furnace, right-click on the ore they want to smelt, click on 'Smelt X', and then type in how many they want.

When smelting just a few ore, it can be faster to choose the 'Smelt 5' or 'Smelt 10' options, as bars will be smelted until the player runs out of ore.

Smelting using Magic
With level 43 Magic, players can smelt bars using the Superheat Item spell. Doing so grants the same amount of smithing experience, and has a few advantages:
 * The player can emerge from a mine with a full inventory of bars, instead of a full inventory of ores which will smelt into only a fraction of the bars.
 * The player receives both Smithing and Magic experience.
 * The player saves time by not having to commute between a bank and a furnace.
 * The player is granted a 100% success rate in smelting ore.

Success rate
All metals have a 100% success rate with the exception of Iron. As a balance to iron bars only requiring one ore, the smelting of iron ore using a furnace may sometimes fail. This success rate is raised to 100% under the following conditions:
 * The iron is being smelted using the Superheat Item spell.
 * The player has a Ring of Forging equipped.
 * The iron is smelted in the Blast furnace mini-game

Smelting table
Players need higher smithing levels to smelt progressively higher level metals. Bars that can only be smithed by Members are italicized.

Smithing
For a list of anvils, see Anvil

Smithing is the process by which players craft a metal item out of one or more metal bars.

Smithing is always done at an an anvil. When a player uses a metal bar on an anvil, a dialog is shown in which the player selects which item to forge. The player can either click the item to smith one such item, or may right-click on the item and select a higher quantity of items to smith.

Note: Once a player has selected a quantity of items to smith, the player's character will only cease smithing once the quantity is filled, the player has run out of bars, or the player is attacked.

For players attempting to raise their smithing skill, it is recommended that players first have a large number of bars in their bank, thus allowing fast experience as only trips between a bank and an anvil are needed.

Different smithing levels are required to make different items. For the required levels for all items, see Smithing table.

Smithing table
Below are table with information about smithing and what players can create. It is important to note that black armour and weapons cannot be smithed.

As is standard, items which can only smithed by Members are italicized.

Tips

 * Players should always use a furnace that is close to a bank. For free players, they should use Al-Kharid's furnace or Falador's furnace. For members, they should use Port Phasmatys furnace if they have completed the Ghosts Ahoy quest.
 * For smelting, it is recommended that players mine as many ores as they want and bank them all, not mine 28 ores, smelt them, and then smith them, although in Al Kharid the furnace is on the way to the bank. This way, a player can go from a bank to a furnace, smelt their ores, and then go back to the bank and repeat. This is much faster than mining and smelting then banking.
 * For smithing, it is recommended that players smelt all of their ores and then smith their bars. This is much faster than smelting 28 ores and then smithing 28 ores.
 * For anvils, members are highly recommended to use the anvils on the Void Knight Outpost. To reach this island, talk to the squire to the south of the Port Sarim dock. There are multiple anvils on this island, located 10 or so seconds(walking) directly from the bank - this is extremely quick, if smithing bars into weapons, armour, etc. Another good place is Yanille as the bank is only one click away and you avoid those pesty cats. Free players are recommended to use the anvils south of Varrock's west bank. These anvils are right beside the bank, and smithing bars can be very fast if a player goes from the bank to the anvils, smiths their bars, goes back to the bank, and repeats.

Making money
If a player's magic level is 55 and their smithing level is 48, then they can make a great amount of money, but only if they mine the ores themselves.

Using the spell 'High Level Alchemy' (also known as 'high alching'), a player can make a great profit. When a player high alchs a steel platebody, they receive 1,200 coins. So if a player has 100 steel plates, and they have enough runes to high alch the plates, then they've just made 120,000 coins. The only con is that high alching can be slow and boring, and the player has to have enough runes to cast the spell.

It is not recommended players sell what they make to general stores, as these stores give players low prices. Instead, they should high alch them. If their magic level is not high enough, then players should sell what they made to other players. Players are strongly recommended that they do not use the weaker 'Low Level Alchemy' spell, as this spell gives players a much smaller amount of coins than they would receive from high alching.

Generally, the best things to use high-alchemy on are either swords or plate bodies - these items yield the most coins per bar (the exception is rune). There is a full high-alchemy table below.

At smithing level 40 with crafting level 6 and a necklace mould, gold necklace can be made at the same furnace in which gold ores are smelted into gold bars. Grum's jewellery shop in Port Sarim buys a gold necklace at 315 coins if his inventory is zero; the price decreases 9 coins for each gold necklace he has, dropping to 45 coins at an inventory of 30 or more. Selling to a general store gives only 180 coins or less. High alching (270 coins) using nature runes (street price 300+ coins) may be a poor value unless a player is able to runecraft natures (level 44).

Selling bars and ores
If a player just wants to sell their bars or ores they get from mining, then these prices are what they should follow. However, players must remember that these prices can change over time.

Steel bars are the recommended bars to sell, as many players make steel plates to level up their smithing level, so there is a large demand for these bars. The best places to sell or buy bars is in Falador and Varrock.

Ore prices

 * Clay: 1 to 5 coins
 * Copper/Tin Ore: 5 to 10 coins
 * Iron Ore: 50 to 100 coins
 * Silver Ore: 100 to 200 coins
 * Coal: 125 to 200 coins
 * Gold Ore: 250 to 600 coins
 * Mithril Ore: 350 to 500 coins
 * Adamant Ore: 900 to 1,000 coins
 * Rune Ore: 11,000 to 12,000 coins

Bar prices

 * Bronze Bar: 20 coins
 * Silver Bar: 150 to 300 coins
 * Iron Bar: 150 to 250 coins
 * Steel Bar: 550 to 650 coins
 * Gold Bar: 200 to 400 coins
 * Mithril Bar: 800 to 1,000 coins
 * Adamant Bar: 2,000 to 2,400 coins
 * Rune Bar: 13,000 to 15,000 coins

Free-play training
Here is a way a free player can raise their smithing level.


 * Level 1 to 29 - buy 2 iron bars from a higher level smither then do The Knight's Sword quest, it gives 12,750 Smithing experience, granting many levels to a low-level smither.Or you can smith bronze at Al-Kharid.
 * Level 20 to 30 - Smelt and sell silver bars at Al-Kharid.
 * Level 29 to 40 - Smelt and smith iron. However, this will be very slow.
 * Level 40 to 68 - Smelt and sell or craft gold bars at Al-Kharid. This is also a good way to make money.
 * Level 30 to 68 - Smelt and smith steel. Players are recommended that they smith steel plates and then high level alchemy them for a great profit.
 * Level 68 to 99 - Smelt and smith mithril. This will be very long and boring, though mithril plates give great xp as well as a great amount of coins from high alcing the plates.

Many players prefer to make steel plates to level up their smithing level. This is great as the ores to make steel are relatively easy to obtain, plus the smithing experience from the plates is great.

Members Training
Members tend to train smithing using different methods to non-members.


 * Gold ore is superb experience if you have the Goldsmith Gauntlets from the Family Crest quest. Wearing the Goldsmith Gauntlets while smithing gold bars will give you 56.2 experience per bar made, or 1574 experience per trip to the furnace. Compare to bronze: 25 experience, iron: 350, silver: 378, steel: 157.5, mithril: 150, addy: 150, rune: 150, all per trip to the furnace. However, it's difficult to find regular suppliers of gold ore, and even when you do, you'll struggle to sell gold bars in quantity.  The price of gold ore can be extremely high in large quantities, because of the speed of the experience.
 * Blast Furnace is a very good way to level smithing. Buy the ores, make mithril bars using the blast furnace, smith them into mithril platebody and high alch the plates. You will roughly break even in the sense that you don't have to bank for coins no matter how long you keep doing this.
 * Cannonballs are slow, and worse experience than any other steel smithing, but you can make a serious profit from them. Generally cannonballs sell for 150-200 each, whereas steel bars sell for 500-600 each and you can also buy the iron/coal instead and make the bars for 350 each.  There are a lot of buyers for cannonballs who are training Slayer.
 * Adamant axes - need to train Woodcutting and not just Smithing? Good.  Go and cut trees by loads of newbies, a great place to do this is cutting willow by draynor bank.  While you are there, sell adamant axes for 2,000 coins each (costs roughly 1,600 to make the bars if you buy the materials).  2,000 each is a bargain price for adamant axes, and you may find some equipment traders who buy lots off you at once (in which case, you may want to do something like a "buy 10, get 1 free" policy - you get more axes off your hands and you are still selling for a profit of 200 coins per bar).  Sometimes the market can be very slow, but aometimes you'll find 2 equipment traders at the same time and get rid of 70 in one go.  Accept cash mostly or a good barter deal (e.g. 150 willow logs worth 3-4.5,000 coins).  Warning: You may/will saturate the market, so don't do this too often!  If you can, try and source a load of rune hatchets cheaply to sell at the same time.
 * Rune axes - Similar to adamant, go and cut by loads of other woodcutters - not necessarily newbies. While you are there, sell rune axes for 17,000 coins each, and 15,000 coins each (or even cheaper) in bulk.  People training for a high woodcutting level often buy loads, and equipment traders are easier to find when you're selling rune hatchets.
 * Selling bars on the forums - It's slow experience, but if you want to, make some bars and sell them on the forums. Do NOT price yourself out of the market, there's plenty of others using this trick - put up a reasonable minimum bid price and be prepared to sell for that price.
 * Arrows - are slow but good experience, and you may be able to break even on arrows. However, you'll have a lot of competition - it's generally easier to sell the cheaper arrows like iron or steel rather than mithril.  Of course, these are far lower experience per bar, and from your point of view, a waste of feathers and logs!  It's also a lot of trading work - getting feathers, normal logs, making the headless arrows, etc.
 * Knives and Darts - Can be extremely profitable to do, many extremely high level smiths make money on Iron Knives rather than cannonballs, because it's easier to source large amounts of iron than coal, and the experience per hour rate is roughly the same.
 * Studded bodies - Here you make studs out of all your steel bars (350 coins each), combine it with a leather body (101 coins each), runecraft a nature (31 coins each) and high-alch. This is extremely heavy on nature runes which means that you'll be spending all your time runecrafting rather than smithing.  However, it's very good smithing, craft, runecraft and magic xp - three skills which are very tough to raise, and you make 28 coins (or less) per alched body.  It's a lot of time and effort to go to.
 * Mining the ores, buying the coal - Here, you mine the mithril or adamant yourself, buy the coal, and high-alch the platebodys. You will need high levels for this, and you just about break-even on mithril, and make money on adamant.
 * Spending on fast experience - Here, you make the bars, then make plates, then alch them. This will lose you serious money, but is fast smithing xp (even more if you buy the bars rather than make yourself).  Assuming you runecraft your own natures, you will lose: Steel Plates: 580 coins per plate (2 coins per xp), Mith Plates: 1100 coins per plate (3 coins per xp), Addy Plates: 320 coins per plate (0.5 coins per xp).

Experience per ore used
This compares how much experience is earned for the number of ores used. Gold using the members Goldsmith's gauntlets is first with 56.2 xp; iron is second with 37.5 xp.

The Keldagrim blast furnace minigame requires only half the number of coal for steel, mithril, adamant and rune smelting and iron smelts 100% without the Ring of Forging.

High alchemy table
The items listed below are the ones most players use in high alchemy.

Temporary boosts

 * A Dwarven Stout will raise mining and smithing by 1. It can be bought in Falador, is a common drop from dwarves, and can be bought in several places in members areas, as well as brewed using the Cooking skill.
 * A Mature dwarven stout will raise mining and smithing by 2. You receive 2 as a reward for completing the Forgettable Tale of a Drunken Dwarf, and it can be brewed by using the Cooking skill.

Trivia

 * In the early days, smithing was considered one of the best skills for making money. As such, Jagex kept anvils and furnaces far away as an attempt to prevent people from leveling smithing too quickly. However, this practice has often been considered obsolete ever since banks were able to hold items.
 * In early 2001, smithing had very different requirements. For example, players needed level 96 smithing to make steel plates rather than 48.