Smithing

Smithing is a skill where players can make armour and weapons themselves instead of buying them. 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 involves two things. First, players have to smelt the ores they receive from mining. Second, players can then use the bars they receive from smelting on some anvils to make items.

Smelting
Smelting is when a player puts ores in a furnace and produces a bar. This bar can then be smithed into an item.

In order to smelt, players first of all need ores. Ores can be obtained from mining rocks. Once a player has the amount of ores the want, they can then smelt them.

To smelt an ore, players need to find a furnace. When they've found a furnace, a player can then smelt in two different ways. One way is to use their ores on the furnace and produce one bar at a time slowly. The other way, and much faster way, 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.

For anything better than iron, it is faster to choose the 'Smelt 5' or 'Smelt 10' options, even if you do not have enough material to make the full number.

With level 43 magic, you can also smelt bars using the Superheat Item spell, most often used in order to carry bars out of a mine that supplies ores and coal.

Smelting table
When a player has found a good furnace, they can then smelt their ores. However, players need certain smithing levels to smelt ores into bars. Instead of using a furnace, a player may also use Superheat Item instead, which is recommended for the higher ores.

Smithing
Smithing is where the player uses their bars they received from smelting their ores and smith them into items, usually armour or weapons.

To smith, players need to find an anvil. Anvils are labbelled on a player's mini-map, which is in the top right corner of the game's window. An anvil is shown on the mini-map as a small anvil with a circle around it. It is recommended that players smith their bars by having many bars in their bank. Doing this allows players to get faster xp then mining ores, smelting the ores, and then hammering the bars.

To smith a bar, players have to use the bar with the anvil. A menu will then pop up and ask them what they want to make. If a player right-click's on the picture of what they want to make, they can select how much of the item they want to make. Different smithing levels are required to make different items.

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

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. 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 and 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 made to general stores, as these stores give players cheap 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 Ore: 1 to 5 coins
 * Copper/Tin Ore: 5 to 10 coins
 * Iron Ore: 50 to 100 coins
 * Silver Ore: 100 to 200 coins
 * Coal Ore: 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: 10,000 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.


 * Level 29 to 48 - Smelt and smith iron. However, this will be very slow.
 * Level 30 to 99 - 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 xp if you have the goldsmith gauntlets from the Family Crest quest. 56.2 xp per bar made, or 1574 xp per trip to the furnace - compare to bronze: 25 xp, iron: 350, silver: 378, steel: 157.5, mith: 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 xp.
 * Blast Furnace is a very good way to level smithing. Buy the ores, make mith bars using the blast furnace, smith them into mithril plates and high alch the plates. This is 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, worse xp 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 by loads of newbies, a great place to do this is cutting willow by draynor bank.  Whilst you're 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 of those elusive equipment traders who buy lots off you at once (in which case, I operate a 'buy 10, get 1 free' policy - I get more axes off my hands and I'm still selling for a profit of 200 per bar).  Sometimes the market can be very slow there though, but another time 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. Whilst you're 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 xp, 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 xp, but 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 xp 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 xp 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 plates. You'll need high levels for this, and you just about break-even on mithril, and make money on adamant.
 * Spending on fast xp - 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).  I'm assuming here you runecraft your own natures.  Steel Plates: Lose 580 coins per plate (2 coins per xp).  Mith Plates: Lose 1100 coins per plate (3 coins per xp),  Addy Plates: Lose 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.