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 thrusting it into a warm furnace until it becomes firm and shiny. The title process, Smithing, is the process in which the player repeatedly bangs the bars with a hammer until it becomes 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 iron 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
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 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 is a 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 be smithed by Members are italicized.

If you are wondering about how to find experience, take experience for 1 bar and multiply it by the number of bars you're using. For example, a Bronze Platebody is 62.5 exp using 5 bars. 1 bar is 12.5 exp, so go 5 x 12.5= 62.5. Works for all types, from Bronze -> Runite.

Tips

 * The closest furnaces to a bank are the Port Phasmatys furnace and the Neitiznot furnace, and Al-Kharid's or Falador's furnace for free players.
 * It is often more efficient to break up the tasks of mining, smelting (unless superheating), and smithing, rather than try to mine 28 ores, smelt them, and then smith them (although in Al Kharid the furnace is on the way to the bank).
 * The anvils located nearest a bank on the Void Knight Outpost, Yanille (just south of the bank), and Varrock (just South of the Western Bank). To reach the Void Knights' Outpost island, talk to the squire South of the Port Sarim dock. There are multiple anvils on this island, located 10 or so seconds (walking) from the bank - this is extremely quick, if smithing bars into weapons, armour, etc.

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. It is highly recommended that players 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 runecrafting and members-only).

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: 150 to 250 coins
 * Gold Ore: 250 to 600 coins
 * Mithril Ore: 350 to 500 coins
 * Adamant Ore: 1,200 to 1,600 coins
 * Rune Ore: 11,000 to 13,000 coins

Bar prices

 * Bronze Bar: 20 coins
 * Silver Bar: 150 to 300 coins
 * Iron Bar: 150 to 250 coins
 * Steel Bar: 650 to 800 coins
 * Gold Bar: 200 to 400 coins
 * Mithril Bar: 800 to 1,200 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 smith then do The Knight's Sword quest, it gives 12,750 Smithing experience, granting many levels to a low-level smith.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. Comparison to Bronze: 25 experience, Iron: 350, Silver: 378, Steel: 157.5, Mithril: 150, Adamant: 150, rune: 150, all per trip to the furnace. It is very easy to find people selling Gold Ore on the RuneScape forums, 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.
 * 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.
 * Throwing 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 - four 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: 3000 coins per plate (16 coins per xp), Mith Plates: 5500 coins per plate (22 coins per xp), Addy Plates: 11000 coins per plate (+35 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, the Lighthouse Store, 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.
 * A spicy stew can (possibly) boost Smithing by 1-6 depending on how many orange doses have been used on the stew.

Quests

 * The Knight's Sword - 12,750 XP
 * Elemental Workshop I - 5,000 XP
 * Elemental Workshop II - 7,500 XP
 * Devious Minds - 6,500 xp

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 levelling 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.