Blast Furnace

The Blast Furnace is a members-only activity located in Keldagrim. Players use the furnace to smelt ore into bars; but to be successful, they must keep it working. The Blast Furnace requires half the amount of coal normally required for a 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.

Although the Blast Furnace is a safe activity, players may become damaged while using the pump by allowing the heat level to enter the Red zone. The amount of damage dealt depends on the player's Strength level.

The Blast Furnace is more efficient when used by a team as multiple players can assume different roles. Working as a team on the Blast Furnace allows for quick experience gain. However, it is possible for players to operate the Blast Furnace alone.

Goldsmithing gauntlets do provide bonus with smelting gold in the furnace.

Reaching the furnace


There are many ways to reach Keldagrim. These include:
 * Using the trapdoor near the Grand Exchange.
 * Riding the train from Dorgesh-Kaan.
 * Riding the mine carts from the Dwarven Mine, or from the passage under the White Wolf Mountain. Players can now have a familiar summoned while using the cart system due to an update to the mine carts; players can also use the hidden trapdoor just northwest of the Grand Exchange to travel to and from Keldagrim for free.
 * Walking from Rellekka or from Seers' village.
 * Fairy ring code D-K-S. This will transport players to the northeast of the Keldagrim entrance.

The Blast Furnace is in south-east 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*.
 * * Players with a Smithing level less than 60 may pay a fee of 2,500 coins in order to use the furnace for 10 minutes. Wearing a Ring of charos (a) halves the payment. Level 60 is also required to use the anvils in the north-west corner of the room. However, it is possible to use temporary boosts to gain access to the forging area, but not to skip paying the Blast Furnace usage fee.
 * Players entering this way can use the furnace multiple times in 10 minutes. If a player logs out, however, their time will expire.
 * 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.

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

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 unnote ores (up to and including Mithril), by using the notes on him, for a small price (see below for costs).
 * Alternatively, players may buy their ore from Ordan, who keeps his own stocks.
 * Finally, players can mine all of their desired ores elsewhere and make bank trips, although the nearest bank is over the river in Keldagrim, accessing the Grand Exchange, via the Mine Carts, is faster.


 * A beast of burden (such as a Spirit terrorbird) may be of good use.

Suggested equipment
While many of the items essential to playing the activity respawn near the Blast Furnace, players may wish to take their own items to increase productivity, or various other functions. You may want to equip a different sacred clay item to revert to a back up hammer.

Operating The Blast Furnace


The process for operating the Blast Furnace is as follows:
 * 1) Place ore and coal on the Conveyor Belt.
 * 2) Turn the Conveyor Belt by operating the Pedals.
 * 3) Repair cogs or drive belt (if broken).
 * 4) Collect coke and use the spadeful of coke to refuel the Stove.
 * 5) Operate the Pump.
 * 6) Repair pipes (if broken).
 * 7) Cool down smelted bars with a water from the sink.
 * 8) Collect the bars from the bar dispenser.

It is also helpful, when playing with a large group, to add coal to the conveyor belt whenever possible, this will then remove the need to unnote and smith. Instead, the player can have a rhythm of smelting and smithing, which can speed up the process. Also, you can add the ore and coal to the furnace when your bars are ready to collect, so while you are smithing them, the others will be being smelted by other players.

Conveyor Belt


First of all, players have to put their raw materials (ore and coal) on the conveyor belt. Once the materials are placed on the belt, they cannot be taken by other players. To activate the conveyor belt, a player must pedal the gearbox. Pedaling drains run energy.

The furnace is limited to a maximum of 229 raw materials per player, but only enough to make 28 bars. Usually this means 201 coal and 28 ore. Players smithing Bronze are limited to 28 Copper and 28 Tin. If a player places the ore first, the coal capacity decreases by the number of ore. For example, placing 5 mithril ore decreases the coal maximum capacity to 219 (229 - 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 28 bars of the same type in the bar dispenser.

The gears driving the drive belt may break while pedaling. When this happens, a player must fix it with a hammer (respawn on the northeast table) in order to get the belt running again. Note that while the gears are broken, the temperature of the furnace stays at the minimum, and no bars are smelted.

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.

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

Heat Pump
When the stove temperature is hot, it is time to pump air into the furnace. Click on the pump to start pumping.

Players must continue to pump until either the bars are smelted, or a pipe or the drive belt 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, she/he will be damaged for up to 160 life points, 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.

The damage is approximately twenty percent (~20%).



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). 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 coke or if a part has broken.

Bar Dispenser
Once the bars are melted, the bar dispenser turns an orange colour. In the bottom right corner of the display, is how much coal is needed in the furnace, or how much coal is already in the furnace. Players can cool the bars down with a bucket of water (respawn near the sink) before obtaining the bars, or wait for another player to cool the bars down. A player can smelt up to 28 bars at once, and must remove bars in order to add more ore. The player will receive the message, "You should check and see if the other bars have smelted before adding more."

Broken Parts
While in use, the pipes and drive belt will break. These can be fixed with a hammer (respawn on the northeast table). It should be noted that there are two sections of pipes that can break.

Experience
Besides the Smithing experience that is gained from smelting the bars and smithing them (if you chose to), the Blast Furnace also offers experience in other skills. This only gives minor experience, however.

Single player strategy


A single player is able to manage the furnace by themselves if they use this strategy:


 * 1) Collect the materials using whatever method.
 * 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. The 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 northeast 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 is needed, so it is important to put enough in. Repeatedly click on "collect coke" 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. This is easily done in full-screen HD.
 * 8) Repair any pipes that break while pumping. Sometimes, many will break and it will take a while; other times, none will break.
 * 9) When the bar dispenser turns an orange colour (and if the sound effects are on, one will hear a 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, then use the bucket on the bar dispenser.
 * 11) Collect the bars. Repeat to your heart's desire.


 * It should be noted if a player heats up the stove to the red colour plus one spadeful of coke, a player oftentimes can pump and repair the blast furnace without having to check the pressure gauge or refill the stove until done with your load of ore.

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


 * The player will receive all of the smelting 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:

Tips: With the reintroduction of personalized shops, Orddan sells the ores at about half the normal cost of GE. So if you trade your ore to him and buyback, the cost involved is almost same as having him unnote them. Ex. Mithril unnotes at 81 and if you sell it to him noted, he pays you 82 gold for each. Then you buy it back again from him, he sells it at 162. So you again lost only 80, since he paid 82 for it already. This will save a huge amount of time avoiding the 'unnote' option. BUT, you must make sure his stock is initially over 100 and keep it over 100 while there.

Bars
* Neither Adamantite nor Runite ores can be unnoted, so their cost does not take into consideration the unnoting cost of the ore. The coal costs, however, are based on unnoting costs like the other 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. Note that since Ordan will not unnote adamant and higher ores, these must be brought to the blast furnace - it may also be advisable to take the smithed platebodies back to a bank instead of high alching them for slightly cheaper training.

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
Crossbow bolts are another very popular fletching item, as they are commonly used while ranging. 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 100 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 201 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.

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.

Summoning and the Blast Furnace
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.

At 52 summoning, players can use the Spirit terrorbird or any other Beast of Burden. A Spirit terrorbird however, gives the option of running (while using the Tireless run scroll) to and from the bank faster.

Trivia

 * On the 9 November 2009, the gate leading to the anvils was removed, and appropriate changes made to the anvils, so that only players with 60+ smithing can use them.
 * Since the update of 2 September 2009, Ordan's shop is personalised to all players, so everyone can buy up to 100 of each coal and ore. The ores are cheaper now, starting with a minimum price which increases, the more you buy. The dwarves who bring the ore do not add to the player's stock anymore.


 * After 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 has been selling them at the normal market price. Ever since this update, Ordan's ore prices were the same whatever the number of ores in stock. Since the update of 2 September 2009 the prices sank, and they are not fix anymore, depending on stock amount.


 * Before the update of 2 September 2009, every 15 seconds Ordan's shop had been restocked by a dwarf that entered the room and gave a large number (around 30) of one random type of ore to Ordan. Once there was 100 ore of a kind in stock, the surplus has been sent to an unknown storage area. It is thought that the ore he un-notes comes from this 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.


 * Many players complained about the gate to the anvils, as it was very difficult for many players to use as it only let one player through at a time.


 * The Blast furnace to many players is an 'Unofficial Smithing Guild', as it requires a smithing level to access, and allows players to level the same skill inside at a faster rate than anywhere else, much the same as other guilds do.


 * In the Q&A on 11 February 2010, Paul Gower stated that the Blast Furnace was created during an attempt to make a Smithing Guild.


 * The bar dispenser does not actually cool over time, as is the common misconception; instead, when any player uses a bucket of water with it, it cools the bars down of every player who is standing around the dispenser. This is consistent with the rest of the furnace, in which one player's actions help everyone (pedaling the conveyor belt carries everyone's ores into the furnace; pumping heats up everyone's ore; etc.).


 * When a player pedaling the conveyor belt runs out of energy, they will dismount one square to the east. Players are unable to rest until after they have moved to a different square.
 * There is currently a glitch which prevents players from adding any extra coal or ore to the furnace, and will not smelt ores currently inside. Jagex have yet to fix this. This may be because the maximum amount of bars is 28, which is equal to a player's inventory.
 * Some players deliberately plant Marker Plants in front of the conveyor belt and/or set up a cannon on Ordan to slow down productivity of other players.
 * There is a glitch where if you activate lumbridge home teleport while operating the pump, the character will still pump but will just have a floating book appear in front of the person.
 * Another glitch exists when two player simutaneously repair a broken pipe. The current pipe will be fixed, but another glitched broken pipe will appear. This cannot be repaired, saying someone else is already repairing it. But it does not impede the temperature of the furnace. This glitch will disappear automatically when the next broken part appears. This glitch has yet been fixed