Free-to-play Smithing training

Smithing was often regarded to be a tedious and expensive skill to train in Free to play worlds before the release of Artisan's Workshop and Portable forges. Forging items out of single bars, financial inability, or the monotony of smelting led people to neglect it.

For those who are financially more able there are distinctive power-levelling methods, which this guide will elaborate on here. Also, for a table showing profits versus experience made smithing certain items, see this page.

Before the release of portable forges, the general paradigm of Smithing training was that smelting bars yielded profit with slow Smithing experience, and smithing items yielded fast experience at significant losses. More recently, the introduction of Summoning and Invention caused increase demand for many finished products. Thus, the paradigm was that smithing iron platebodies or other Invention inputs became nominally the best way to train provided that one has the wealth and patience to sell finished items at a good price. Also, the ability of Portable forges to save bars greatly decreases the loss of smithing so that they are essential for the most efficient methods.

Players with low wealth should still consider the methods that favor high investment but instead accept that they cannot train smithing continuously (and instead must be patient with buy and sell offers). If one is not patient with buy and sell offers, the cost per experience point can be dramatically higher than the quantities listed in this article.


 * This guide focuses on how to train smithing in both cheap and quick ways, prior to the smithing aspects of Dungeoneering.

Inexpensive or Profitable
Below is a list of things for players to do before they can power level themselves effectively or even make some modest profit.

Knight's Sword
The Knight's Sword is a free-to-play quest that gives 12,725 Smithing experience upon completion. This reward would elevate a level 1 smith to level 29 immediately. It is strongly recommended that people interested in Smithing do this quest as soon as possible. Even a level 3 can do it with the help of another player as a guard, since they need to be capable of defending from ice warriors and ice giants whilst mining the blurite ore.

Level 1-15
Beginning smiths not willing to complete the Knight's Sword can only smelt and smith bronze. They can either mine copper and tin ore, smelt them into bars and eventually forge into items, or buy the ores from the Grand Exchange, smelt them into bars and sell them again.

Mining, Smelting and Smithing.

There are four mines which are best suited to mining copper and tin ore:


 * Lumbridge mine
 * East Varrock Mine
 * West Varrock Mine
 * Burthorpe mine

Once you are at the mine you will want to mine an equal number of copper ore and tin ore. The best idea is to add the best pickaxe you can use to your tool belt so you don't have to equip it or put it in your inventory.

Buying, Smelting, Smithing and Selling.

To use this method you have to have a reasonable amount of money (ideally 50,000 or more) to begin with.
 * First of all, you need to go to the Grand Exchange and buy equal amounts of copper ore and tin ore.
 * You then need to travel to Al Kharid for the smelting stage. You will then walk to the nearby furnace and smelt 14 bronze bars out of 14 copper ore and 14 tin ore. Alternatively, you can use Lumbridge's furnace and the Combat Academy bank chest.
 * Store these bars in your bank for now. After all of the ores you bought have been processed, forge them into items on the anvils next to the Varrock west bank, or next to the Lumbridge furnace.
 * Lastly, travel back to the Grand Exchange and sell the equipment.

'''Buying, Smelting and Selling. (Recommended for profit and experience)'''

To use this method you have to have a reasonable amount of money (ideally 50,000 or more) to begin with.
 * First of all, you need to go to the Grand Exchange and buy equal amounts of copper ore and tin ore.
 * You then need to travel to Al Kharid or Lumbridge for the smelting stage. You will then walk to the nearby furnace and smelt 14 bronze bars out of 14 copper ore and 14 tin ore.
 * Lastly, travel back to the Grand Exchange and sell the bars for profit (as well as faster experience at this level).

Due to the high demand for bronze bars from people power-levelling Smithing, one can make a large profit from buying the ore. The only downside to this method is the slow experience rate. However, at this stage it actually works out quicker than if you were to mine the ore, smelt and smith it. Therefore this last option, Buying, Smelting and Selling, may be preferred over the second one, Buying, Smelting, Smithing and Selling.

Making Bronze Tracks (Slow, but free)

Players can go to the Artisan's Workshop and make bronze rail tracks. Information on how to make tracks can be found in-game and on the Artisan's Workshop article. At level one, players can only make bronze rails. As their Smithing levels up, players can make more parts of a track. By level 12, they can make and lay a whole bronze track.

Level 15-29
Profitable Method:

One method for raising Smithing at this point is to smelt iron bars from iron ore. This earns experience faster than bronze as well as more money. However, there is not a 100% success rate for smelting iron. The success rate for iron is 50% when you are level 15, but it increases by 1% every time you level past 15, maxing out at level 45 with 80%. One can also use Superheat for 100% but it uses nature runes which eats into the profits, however it also gains moderate Magic experience.

Making Iron Tracks (Slow but Free)

Players can go to the Artisan's Workshop and make iron rail tracks. Information on how to make tracks can be found in-game and on the Artisan's Workshop article. At level 15, players can only make iron rails. As their Smithing levels up, players can make more parts of a track. By level 35, they can make and lay a whole iron track.

Level 30+
Players can go to the Artisan's Workshop and make burial armour from Grade I iron ingots. Information on how to make burial armour can be found in-game and on the Artisan's Workshop article. Making burial armour from Grade I iron does lose a good bit of money, but it's still much cheaper than other power-levelling methods. Grade I iron does give 40,000/hour experience rate. It's also much cheaper than using higher grade iron or steel ingots, but using those yields faster experience rates.

Level 30-50
At level 30 players unlock the ability to smelt steel bars which is a very common method for raising Smithing in free-to-play. Currently, this method makes essentially no profit, and sometimes a small loss. Its only appeal is that it is available at a low level.

Level 50+
Mithril bars can be smelted at this level, giving 30 experience each. They sell for in the Grand Exchange, with the mithril ore and four coal costing. Roughly 250 bars can be made per hour, for a profit of.

Using Superheat Item, you make a profit provided you use a fire staff and purchase the nature runes. This also allows for the most efficient use of smelting urns, which cost an additional per urn and fills every 25 bars. This method also lets you smelt around 1300 bars per hour or more depending on how active you are.

Most of the time, depending on the price of nature runes, casting Superheat Item to smelt mithril bars is a very reliable method. It makes for a profit of per bar and yields high amounts of experience, around 83,000 per hour (1000 x (30 smithing experience + 53 magic exp) = 83,000), or 89,000 per hour with urns (1000 x ((30 x 120%) + 53) = 89,000) distributed across Magic and Smithing. It does require some starting capital and a Magic level of 43.

The chart to the right shows the rate of experience gained by Superheating mithril bars at a rate of 2600 per hour. It assumes you start at a Magic level of 43 and Smithing level of 50 (the minimum for this method). Level 99 Magic is reached in about 90 hours using this method alone.

Dungeoneering Level 55+
Gaining 55 Dungeoneering and 20,000 dungeoneering tokens will allow a player to obtain the scroll of efficiency. This scroll will give a chance to save one bar while smithing bars outside Daemonheim floors. It is especially useful in power levelling which can possibly save 10% of cash needed to train a skill. Since you have a chance of saving one bar per item, it is better to smith a 3-bar item such as platelegs instead of 5-bar items like platebodies if the object is to reduce cost. This is because for a 3-bar item you will stand a chance of saving 1 bar out of 3, a saving of 33%, whereas for 5-bar items you will still only save one bar, but this time out of 5, reducing the possible savings to 20%. Of course, the tradeoff between the speed of 5-bar items and the savings of 3-bar items must be considered. For precise power levelling costs please proceed below.

Power levelling (Expensive or high investment)
Power levelling mainly uses metal bars for Smithing, raising a quick experience incurring a maximum loss of cash. Basically, players can select between speed or less cost, even in between these power levelling methods. All the power levelling loss is calculated by buying the bars at market price, smithing them and then selling the products at market price. If the products cannot be sold at GE the loss would be even more, up to 20% up. Casting the High Level Alchemy spell on certain smithed items can further reduce the cost of power smithing, with the time spent alching as the compromise.

Important: Using scroll of efficiency requires 55 Smithing. That means a player cannot have the reduced cost until they obtain the scroll, and a player with lower Smithing still has to suffer from the higher power level cost. In order to boost xp rates, one player can use portable forges which gives +10% bonus xp. It allows to save bars from smithing on the anvil, and also provides extra bars when smelting. As portable forges only lasts 5 minutes, the best place to train to save banking time is the Combat academy chest, located north of the Lumbridge lodestone. The unofficial world for F2P forge hosting is world 3. It is also highly recommended to set a bank preset in order to quickly fill your inventory and avoid wasting time which could significantly increase cost per xp, as the use of portable forges is a quite expensive method. Of course, the prospect of sharing forges comes wit implied cost borne by all participants, so this cost should be considered. For simplicity, the calculations in this section do not include the cost of portable forges.

Note: Red, or negative coin amounts denote profit. Blue, or positive coin amounts denote profit. The methods in this section tend to switch between profit and loss surprisingly often.

Level 33
The iron platebody can be smithed. Iron platebodies are used by members in Summoning and Invention. Thus, currently, the loss on iron platebodies is small to nonexistent. Usually, this is the best way to train smithing between level 33 and 99 quickly. This is because of the low margins for iron platebodies as well as their high Buy limit of 500 per four hours. Nominally, certain adamant items such as Adamant scimitars may be both faster and have less cost (or more profit), but their buy limit of 100 per four hours makes a noticeable difference in the attractiveness of adamant items.

The net value of using iron platebodies to power level is per experience. Having the scroll of efficiency used will increase the net value to coins per experience point, but recall that this requires level 55 Smithing. Using the scroll of efficiency along with Portable forges placed by others further increases the net value to. (In uncommon circumstances, this amount can be positive, meaning that this method gives profit.)

If Smithing at the Varrock west bank the experience/hour from iron platebodies can be around 90,000 if enough attention is paid. This rate can increase to over 160,000 with shared Portable forges.

However, the time and/or cost associated with buying and selling may be too great if one cannot afford 2000 iron bars at the same time. (In particular, great patience is sometimes required to sell iron platebodies at a reasonable price.) This is worth. Even with 2000 iron bars, one can only smith at full speed for about 25 minutes. Generally speaking, a higher investment in this method greatly reduces transaction costs and trading time so that even wealth over 20 million coins helps.

Example: Giving up 1 % when buying and selling
Suppose that because a player has low total wealth, he considers buying the inputs at 1% above market price and selling outputs at 1% below market price. Then the net value per experience point of making iron platebodies with portable forges and the scroll of efficiency increases to. At current market prices, this means that the player's low wealth has caused this method to become times as expensive. (This ratio only makes sense if both methods are unprofitable.) Alternatively, the penalty per 1 million experience is, which can be considered quite significant.

In this sense, smithing is actually a cheap skill after unlocking the scroll of efficiency because the net value to train from level 55 to 99 is, but this can decrease to  if one buys and sells at 1% worse than market price.

Level 75
The Adamant scimitar can be smithed. The net value of using adamant scimitars to power level is per experience point. Using portable forges will increase the net value to coins per experience point. The scroll of efficiency does not aid this method because scimitars use only two bars.

If smithing at the Varrock west bank with reasonable attention paid around 90,000 experience per hour can be attained. With portable forges, over 180,000 experience per hour can be attained. Be aware that this item is not easy to sell in bulk quantities.

Level 99
The Rune 2h sword can be smithed. It is essentially imperative to use Portable forges to smith Rune 2h swords because the forge saves 0.3 bars per sword on average, worth per 1000 items (comfortably smithed in under one hour). These savings far outstrip the cost of placing portable forges oneself. The scroll of efficiency is also recommended.

The net value of using Rune 2h swords to power level is experience point. With portable forges, the net value increases to per experience point, taking into account the 10% experience bonus from portable forges. With portable forges and Wasteless smithing, the net value is. (If this amount is positive, this method yields profit.)

Finally, because of the unusually low Buy limit of Rune 2h swords and market idiosyncrasies, it is possible to sell rune 2h swords for a higher unit price in person. For example, a price of 37,000 each is very common. (In constrast, the Grand Exchange price is commonly below 36,600 coins, and it is currently .) The net value is in this case.

Rune 2h swords are currently the fastest way power level smithing in free worlds with reasonable cost. If smithing at portable forges, around 320,000 experience per hour can be obtained. However, the time to buy and sell may be too much if one cannot afford 1000 or more bars at a time. This is worth coins. For this method, even wealth over 100 million coins makes a noticeable difference in reducing transaction costs and trading times.

Here are some technical remarks about why one should smith rune 2h swords only rather than rune platelegs or rune plateskirts. These remarks can be ignored

Remark: One may wonder if Rune platelegs or Rune plateskirts should be smithed instead. All three items require 3 Rune bars and level 99 smithing and yield 225 base experience. Also, the value of all three items is essentially driven by their High Level Alchemy value of 38,400 coins each. Thus nominally, these items should be equivalent. Furthermore, one may hypothesize that one should make a mix of these items in order to sell all three items on the Grand Exchange at the same time in order to mitigate the low buy limits. (The reasoning is that by having sell offers of, say, 1000 2h swords and platelegs, an informed buyer can buy 100 of each item per four hours, thus essentially doubling your selling rate.)

There are two main reasons that one should smith Rune 2h swords only and NOT a mix of the three items. Here is the reasoning. First, this training method should only be done in bulk and selling in person. This is because one can make much more profit (or lose much less) by selling in person. Second, due to small market imperfections and rather esoteric reasons, some in-person buyers will not buy rune platelegs and/or skirts at the same price as they would buy 2h swords. Therefore, if one attempts to sell platelegs at the same price as 2h swords, one will on average have more difficulty. As an estimate, this difficulty could be equated to a price of 25 to 75 coins less per item which one is essentially giving away for nothing. In conclusion, it is essentially always easier to sell 2h swords in person than platelegs in person, and selling in person is far superior to selling on the Grand Exchange.

If one is committed to not selling in person for whatever reason (which is not recommended), then one should note that the buy limit for platelegs and plateskirts is combined. For rather esoteric reasons, most people use their buy limit on platelegs only. Thus one should only make 2h swords and platelegs and no plateskirts at all.

Profit making through smithing
Smithing with profit usually demands a combination of a high level, a high investment, and low experience rates.

The best place to smelt bars is Lumbridge as the bank chest and the furnace are really close together. If you want to train smithing at Al Kharid, try using this trick: Rest until run mode is 100. Smelt the bars (run). Run to the furnace and the bank instead of walking, when your run mode is 20 or below rest either when you reach the furnace or the bank. Rest until your run mode is 100 again. Another good place to smelt bars is Falador. You can smelt the bars at the Falador furnace and use the West Falador Bank. If your magic is 43 or above, and you're willing to risk losing some money in the process, you can superheat ores to make bars. You can use this spell at the Grand Exchange and as soon as you're done, you can sell the bars. If you run out of runes, you can buy more. To figure out if you are to lose or gain money with the Superheat Item spell, use this table.

Smelting Gold bars
At level 40, Gold bars can be smelted using one Gold ore. It is recommended to buy the ore on the Grand Exchange. Each bar yields 22.5 Smithing experience. Buying and selling the materials on the GE currently nets.

Smelting other bars
Currently, Rune bars are always the most profitable bar to smelt, but the high level requirement often makes this irrelevant for smithing trainers. One should often check the profit margins on bars in order to find the best bar, as the best option (below Rune) can often change.

Mithril bars currently net, adamant bars currently net , and rune bars currently net.

Superheating bars
This is a combination method explained here. The lowest requirement is 30 smithing and produces steel bars. More experienced smiths can, at levels 50, 70, and 85, produce mithril, adamant and Rune bar respectively. A magic level of 43 is always required for this method in order to utilise the Superheat Item spell. Superheating whilst mining coal can increase the number of bars produced before needing to return to the bank. It is reasonable to superheat 1300 bars per hour. However, with an incredible amount of investment for moving around interfaces and learning hotkeys, one can superheat 2740 bars per hour, as shown at

Efficient Inventory Smelting
This table is to guide you how to fill the 28 spots in your inventory in the most effective way when smelting bars. It can also be used as a guide whilst mining, but then it assumes the pickaxe is equipped or in the tool belt. The column at the left tells you which bars are produced and the column next to it tells you which ores one’s inventory should contain in order to make these bars. Please notice this method is before the coal bag was released.

If using the coal bags, you can carry 81 coal in the space of one spot. nearly doubling the amount of bars you can make a trip(except for bronze and iron). Note that coal bags are not automatically filled when using Bank presets. Instead, while banking, one should right click the coal bag in the inventory and click "fill" before pressing the keybind for the appropriate bank preset. This is currently the fastest way to use coal bags with bank presets.

Here is a list of smelting bars with coal bag.

Superheating
The table below shows the experience points per hour rates and profit of superheating any metal. It is assumed that a fire staff is used and that all ores, nature runes and bars are sold and bought at the Grand Exchange market price. Remember that prices may always vary.

In order to maximise experience, make sure you withdraw the exact amount of ores needed to maximise the bars you can smelt before you need to withdraw ores again. When using a coal bag, fill your inventory with coal, put the coal into the bag and then withdraw all the ores and the resting coal. When all the ores are in your inventory press the 'esc' button to close the bank quicker and to save time. Once most of the ores are smelted into bars, click to open the bank exactly at the same time the last ore is turned into a bar. If superheating without a coal bag, a quick preset can be made with the appropriate ores to make for even faster banking.

Artisans' Workshop
Artisans' Workshop has the distinction of being the free-to-play training method with among the least actions required. One only needs to perform less than once every four minutes to obtain near the maximum experience rate.

The table below shows the experience points per hour rates and cost/experience points for smithing Burial armour. It is assumed that 370 pieces of armour are smithed per hour. It is also taken into consideration that when not following Suak's instructions and smithing any random piece of armour instead, 25% of the time the armour part smithed will still coincide with the one assigned by Suak, thus giving the player the 10% XP bonus.


 * No bonus means smithing any piece of armour without following Suak's instructions and without having bought the Quick Learner reward.
 * +2% Bonus means smithing any piece of armour without following Suak's instructions and having bought the Quick Learner reward.
 * +10% bonus means smithing the piece of armour specified by Suak's instructions and without having bought the Quick Learner reward.
 * +12% bonus means smithing the piece of armour specified by Suak's instructions and having bought the Quick Learner reward.

Armour/Weaponry Smithing
The table below shows the XP per hour rates of smithing metal bars into armour or weapons. It's assumed that in order to maximize experience points, The anvils located in the West of Varrock are being used and the bank next to them.


 * 1 Bar: Includes Daggers, Helms, Hatchets, Maces, Swords and Arrowtips
 * 2 Bars: Includes Scimitars, Longswords and Sq Shields
 * 3 Bars: Includes Warhammers, Battleaxes, Chainbodies, Kiteshields, 2h Swords, Platelegs and Plateskirts
 * 5 Bars: Includes Platebodies

Determining Profit & Calculations
Ideally, gaining experience while making a profit is what players strive to achieve. If this is not possible, then players strive to minimise the loss involved. Therefore, some calculation is necessary to determine exactly how much money is gained or lost per experience gained, and to minimise the loss or maximize the profit.

Profit/loss for smelting bars
For a given bar, the price of smelting the bar can be calculated easily by adding the prices of the individual ores (optionally added to that is the price of the nature rune if Superheat Item is used.) The profit then is simply the price of the bar minus the cost of the materials. If the profit is positive, money is gained; if it’s negative, money is lost. If this value is p, then the profit or loss per experience is p/x where x is the experience gained by smelting a single bar.

Profit/loss for smithing bars
For any given item, let n be the number of bars required to make that item. If k is the cost of one bar and x is the price of the item made, then the profit is simply x – nk. If the profit is positive, money is gained; if it is negative, money is lost. If this value is p, then the profit or loss per experience is p/e where e is the experience gained by smithing a single bar.

Profit/loss for smelting and smithing bars
For a given item, let a be the number of bars required to make that item. If b is the cost of the ores required to make one bar, and c is the price of the item made, then the profit is simply c-ab. If the profit is positive, money is gained; if it is negative, money is lost. If this value is p, then the profit or loss per experience is p/(e+f) where e is the experience gained by smithing a single item and f is the experience gained by smelting a single bar.

Dungeoneering Training
With the introduction of Dungeoneering, a new and most importantly free way to train Smithing has opened up. Though the process is more time consuming than most other methods of training Smithing, the gold piece free nature of this training is ideal for players who are low on money or simply wish not to spend money on ores or mining.

The way to train Smithing in Daemonheim revolves about smelting bars and smithing weapons, then selling back the latter. Ores can be obtained from limited resources throughout dungeon, or bought with Rusty coins from Smugggler.

Adding a pickaxe to tool belt requiring higher level than you have will grant the best available pickaxe until your level exceeds level of pickaxe, thus taking whatever the best pickaxe you can is recommended. You may have a high smithing level and buying a high-tiered ore from smuggler and smith a pickaxe, adding it to your tool belt regardless of your mining level.

Buying ores from Smuggler gives a slow, steady way to train smithing level, which is far more reliable than mined ores in Daemonheim. The hardest complexity should be played so you can make use of the smuggler's shop. The most cost-effective way is to stick with Novite (Tier 1) two-hand swords or mauls. The higher tier ores can only give much fewer experience per cost, and Novite platebodies although gives more experience per smithing interval, sell for the same price as 2h and mauls, thus reducing the total experience gained in each run considering capital usage.

Each 2h sword or maul is made from 4 novite ores. Each ore costs 420 coins, and each weapon can be sold for 420 coins, or 560 with low alchemy and 840 with high alchemy. It results in 1260 coins (or 840-1120 plus 50 per essence used) for every 84 experience gained. It means efficiency is increased by about 1/3 if High Alchemy is used, but be aware you may trade time for extra Magic and Smithing experience. A Salve orb (unlocked at 8 Crafting) can be made from one salve cloth and one thread (for a one-time investment of 430 coins). This is a cheap alternative to staff or wand, and all three kinds of item provide infinite supply of fire runes for Alchemy spells.

Smelting in Daemonheim is updated so that it is faster than smelting steel but slower than power-levelling. Smithing weapons is significantly faster. However, as long as any other players in the team have shared experience on, the smithing experience gained will be divided equally among all the sharing player and the smelter. It is recommended to solo a dungeon to use this method.

Artisans Workshop
The more recently released training method of smithing, is proven a convenient alternative to the process of smelting and smithing metal equipment.

The workshop differs from regular training in three ways: The large amount of time consumption, automated storage and disposal of material, and the raw material associated.

Using the workshop does not require iron or steel bars. Iron ore and Coal are required though, although they can be deposited in note form, saving large amount of banking time. The training process is simple: Withdraw ingots, smith burial armour, deposit and repeat. Generally the workshop is recommended for training at low cost, in which players smith iron miner armour using grade 1 ingots. Ignoring the +10% experience bonus, the training cost is about coins per experience point.

Although using better ingots to smith armour will yield significantly better experience, it is generally not recommended as the potential cost would be very large. The experience per hour when using iron ingot i is 40,000, this is pretty good experience as one can afk for 5 minutes before depositing the armour and getting more ingots.