Blast Furnace

''This article is about the blast furnace used in the minigame of the same name. For another blast furnace used to smelt Elemental ore, see Elemental Workshop (dungeon).''

The Blast Furnace is a member's only minigame located in Keldagrim. Players may use this furnace to smelt ore into bars, but must keep it in working order to be successful. The Blast Furnace requires half the amount of coal required for a normal furnace or Superheat Item spell. This makes it a faster and low cost way to train Smithing. The official server for Blast Furnace is World 58.

While the Blast Furnace is a safe minigame, players may become injured while using the heat pump. The amount of damage taken depends on the player's Hitpoints level.

The Blast Furnace is more efficient when used by a team, however, single players can complete it by using a bit of strategy (See Single player strategy).

Reaching the furnace
There are many ways to reach Keldagrim. These include:
 * Riding the train from Dorgesh-Kaan.
 * Riding the mine carts from the Dwarven Mine. Players may not have a familiar summoned whilst using this method.
 * Riding the mine cart from the passage under the White Wolf Mountain. Players may not not have a familiar summoned whilst using this method.
 * Walking from Relleka or from Seers' village.
 * Fairy ring code D-K-S. This will transport players to the north east of the Keldagrim entrance.

The Blast Furnace is in south eastern Keldagrim, next to the train station.

Skills requirements
The following skill levels are required to operate the Blast Furnace. If players are working as a team, however, these level requirements may be met by the entire team; not for each individual.


 * Smithing level of 60 #
 * Firemaking level of 30, for fuelling up the stove
 * Strength level of 30, for pumping the stove
 * Agility level of 30, for pedalling the conveyor belt
 * Crafting level of 30, for fixing the broken pipes


 * Players with a Smithing level of less than 60 may pay a fee of 2500 coins in order to use the furnace for 10 minutes. If wearing a Ring of charos, this fee is reduced to 1250 coins. Level 60 is also required to enter anvil area in the north west corner of the room. It is possible to use temporary boosts to gain access to the smithing area, but not to skip paying the Blast Furnace usage fee.


 * This 10 minute time limit allows multiple uses of the furnace. If a player logs out, however, their time will expire.

What to Bring
The following items are suggested in order to utilise the Blast Furnace effectively.

Ore
Ore is essential in order to train Smithing at the Blast Furnace. Ore may be obtained by one of several methods:


 * Players may bring all of their ore in note form. Ordan, the Blast Furnace foreman, will then un-note ores (up to and including Mithril) for a small price. Players may use their banks notes upon Ordan to accomplish this.
 * Alternatively, players may buy all their ore from Ordan, who keeps his own stocks. When supplies are depleted, players can change worlds to refresh the stock.
 * Finally, players can mine all of their desired ore elsewhere and make bank trips.

Suggested equipment

 * Coins in order to either buy or unote ores and to pay the Blast Furnace fee.
 * Ring of charos in order to pay a lower usage fee (if the player's smithing level lower than 60).
 * Nature Runes and a Staff of fire or Fire runes if players wish to utilise the high alchemy spell.
 * Varrock armour for the occasional speed boost when smithing.

Operating The Blast Furnace
The process for operating the Blast Furnace is as follows:
 * 1) Place ore and coal on the Conveyor Belt
 * 2) Activate the Conveyor Belt by operating the Pedals
 * 3) Collect coke and use the spadeful of coke to refuel the Stove
 * 4) Operate the Pump
 * 5) Repair any broken parts
 * 6) Cool down smelted bars with water
 * 7) Collect the newly smelted metal bars

Conveyor Belt
First of all, players have to put their ore and coal on the conveyor belt. Once the ore is placed on the belt, it cannot be taken by other players. To activate the conveyor belt, the player must pedal the gearbox. Pedalling slowly drains run energy, but it gives about 2 Agility experience per second. The furnace is limited to a maximum of 226 coal and 28 ore (254 slots). If a player puts in ore first, the coal capacity will decrease by the number of ore put in. For example, putting in 5 mithril ore will decrease the coal maximum capacity to 244 (254 - 10) since mithril ore requires 2 coal per bar. Players can see the amount of coal in the furnace by checking the dispenser. However, there is no way to know how much metal ore is in the furnace until the capacity is reached. Note that a player cannot add ore if there are bars of the same type in the bar dispenser.

The drive belt may break while running. When this happens, a player must fix it with a hammer (respawn on the north-east table) in order to get the belt running again.

Furnace Stove
After putting in the ore, the next step is to load coke into the stove with a spade (respawn by the coal pile). To load coke, click the pile of coke and then the stove. 5 Firemaking experience is gained per load.

The colour of the grate indicates the temperature of the stove:
 * [[Image:Blast cold stove.png]] - Cold
 * [[Image:Blast warm stove.png]] - Warm
 * [[Image:Blast hot stove.png]] - Hot

Heat Pump
When the stove temperature is hot, it's time to pump air into the furnace. Click on the pump to start pumping. About 4 Strength experience is gained per second when pumping.

Players must continue to pump until either the bars are smelted, or a pipe breaks.

Caution: Be careful not to pump when the temperature gets into the red zone as indicated on the temperature gauge. If a player continues to pump, s/he will be damaged for up to 16 Hitpoints, depending on his/her Hitpoints level. Therefore the player should either have another player warn him/her when the gauge approaches the red region, or listen for the production of bars, as discussed below.



Temperature Gauge
The blast furnace will only produce bars while the temperature gauge is in the green region. A player watching the gauge may tell the pumper to start pumping when the needle is white and stop pumping when it approaches red (to prevent the pumper from taking damage, as mentioned above). However this is not really necessary, since the bars are produced as soon as the needle reaches green; upon seeing and hearing this, the pumper can stop pumping. The gauge will also indicate when the stove needs more coal or if a part has broken.

Bar Dispenser
Once the bars are melted, the bar dispenser turns a golden colour. Players can cool the bars down with a bucket of water (respawn near the dispenser) before obtaining the bars, or wait for the bars to cool down as they operate the furnace. A player can smelt up to 28 bars at once, and must remove bars in order to add more ore.

Broken Parts
While in use, the pipes and drive belt will break. These can be fixed with a hammer (respawn on the north-east table). Each fix will yield 50 Crafting experience. (Note: If you use the Sacred clay hammer to repair the pipes and belt, each fix will yield 100 crafting experience but it will use around 0.28% charge for each fix)

Single player strategy


A single player is able to manage the furnace by himself if s/he uses this strategy:


 * 1) Collect the materials however you like.
 * 2) Place them on the conveyor belt (left click on the belt to put them all on at once) with the correct ratio of ores (1:1 iron to coal, 1:2 mithril to coal, 1:3 adamantite to coal, and/or 1:4 runite to coal) for up to 28 bars. Player may place more coal than needed.
 * 3) Pedal the conveyor belt so that the ore goes into the furnace. Repair conveyor belt if it jams.
 * 4) Collect the hammer and spade from their respawn places in the room. The hammer spawn point is on a table near the north-east corner and the spade spawn point is on the floor next to the refuel area.
 * 5) Now fuel up the machine. There is no point only putting in a little fuel as it will run out when it's needed, so it is important to put enough in. Repeatedly click on "collect coal" and then "Refuel Stove" until the colour of the three lines on top of the stove is red. If done quickly it is also possible to use as few as eight repetitions and the pipes do not break too much.
 * 6) Move on to pumping the machine. First check that there are no broken pipes. If there are click on them and you will repair them with your hammer.
 * 7) Start pumping. There is no need to check the gauge while pumping. Position your view so that you can see the bar dispenser, the pipes, and the stove top, as shown on the upper image.
 * 8) Repair any pipes that break while pumping. Sometimes many will break and it will take a while; sometimes none will break.
 * 9) When the bar dispenser turns a golden colour (and if the sound effects are on one will hear a kind of popping noise), stop pumping as the bars are done, otherwise you will be hurt by a blast of hot air.
 * 10) Collect the bucket from the spawn point near the sink and fill it with water from the sink, then use the bucket on the bar dispenser.
 * 11) Collect the bars. Repeat as desired.

Compared to operating the furnace in a team, this strategy has the following advantages:


 * The player will receive all of the smelting experience.
 * Ordan's ore shop generally restocks fast enough to supply the player with sufficient ore, whereas with more than one player buying the same kind of ore, the shop will run out. Note that even with just one player, Ordan will usually run out of coal.

Team playing
Team playing at the Blast Furnace is much easier than attempting it yourself, as people can assume different jobs. This option also allows for the faster gathering of experience.

Ores
When deciding strategies for the blast furnace, it is important to understand the true cost of unnoting the ores and manufacturing the bars:

High Alchemy Profit/Loss
This next table evaluates the profitability for casting the high alchemy magic spell on plate bodies of the various ore types:

Arrowtip profit/loss
Each bar will produce 15 arrowtips, and the price below reflects each group of 15 arrowtips made from one bar. As these are stackable, there is no need for Nature runes, and these can be sold on the Grand Exchange or used with Fletching skill to create arrows. The prices and the profit is on a per-bar basis and not per arrowtip.

Crossbow Bolt Cost
Just as it may be profitable to make arrow tips, crossbow bolts are another very popular fletching item that is in demand. The prices and the profit is on a per-bar basis and not per bolt, as 10 bolts can be smithed per bar.

High level ores
One effective way is to bring 200 noted coal and 25 un-noted runite ore, roughly 30,000 coins, 5 nature runes and a fire staff. Put all of the runite ores on the conveyor; Then, by using the method of un-noting in the shop, put all the coal on the conveyor too. It is important to realise that there is a coal maximum of 216 in the furnace. A player can't put more than this on the conveyor belt and/or furnace.

After making the bars, a player can smith them and use High Level Alchemy on the smithed items. This means the player can run for longer when going back to the bank and the furnace is now ready for its next load.

If you have summoning level 13 or better, you can use a Thorny snail to hold noted coal and gold when making trips to the furnace, allowing you to have as much as 29 ores in your inventory (with one "open" slot in the storage area of the snail to go over the normal 28). You have 16 minutes before the snail pouch expires, but that should be sufficient time to travel from the bank, smelt the ore, and even return to the bank with the bars. Thorny snail pouches can be purchased for 292 coins (the price floor for that pouch type) on the Grand Exchange. Other beasts of burden can be used even more dramatically to help enhance the productivity of higher level smithing. However, when you are making steel bars with a beast of burden, remember these steps:


 * Add iron ore to the furnace (provided coal is already inside it)
 * Take iron ore from familiar, but DON'T ADD IT TO THE FURNACE YET!!!
 * Collect the steel bars from the bar dispenser once they're done
 * Store some of the steel bars with the familiar
 * Add the iron ore to the furnace and make into bars

If these steps aren't followed, the iron ore from the familiar will be made into iron bars instead of steel.

Mithril processing
The dwarf Ordan sells all types of ore up to mithril. This allows a player to train smithing without mining ores. Buy mithril and coal from Ordan in the ratio two coal for each mithril. Make two trips of 25 coal and another for 25 mithril. Operate the Blast Furnace to obtain 25 mithril bars. Smith them into 5 mithril platebodies. After high alching the smithed items, a small profit remains (excluding the cost of the nature runes). Bringing a few hundred nature runes allows a player to repeat this until the shop runs out of ores. Generally the coal supply runs out first. Hence, players need to switch to another world or bring their own noted coals. Note that processing of 25 ores/bars requires a bit of inventory management. Use the spade and hammer respawns for this.

Trivia

 * Since the Grand Exchange update, Ordan was first selling ore at the maximum market price, which was much more expensive than previously. After complaints from players over this, he is now selling them at the normal market price. Ever since this update, Ordan's ore prices are the same whatever the number of ores in stock.


 * Every 15 seconds Ordan's shop is restocked by a dwarf that enters the room and gives a large number (around 30) of one random type of ore to Ordan. Once there is 100 ore of one kind in stock, the surplus is sent to an unknown storage area.


 * The conveyor belt that moves the ores into the furnace has 3 separate sections turning independently. However, only the outer two are connected to the pedal mechanism; the inner one turns by itself.


 * If you examine the Melting Pot it says the foreman refers to it as 'Bertha'.


 * There is a glitch where when summoning familiars go against the ramp up towards the conveyor belt, then float sideways.


 * When the ores are put on the conveyor belt, they appear as a yellow dot on the minimap. It has not been confirmed by jagex whether or not this is a glitch.