Welcome to my complete level 1-99 Smithing training guide. This guide covers everything you need to know to efficiently train from level 1 through to 99.
Guide Contents
Smithing Basics
Low Level Training
Fastest Ways To 99
AFK Methods
Profitable Methods
Ironman Methods
F2P Methods
If you would prefer to watch a video version of this guide, you can watch here. Otherwise you can can continue scrolling to read the written guide.
Smithing Basics
Smithing involves creating weaponry, armour, ammunition and some utility items.
The bare basics of smithing involve creating a metal bar at a furnace then using a hammer at an anvil to turn the bars into items.
In 2005, the Blast Furnace was added to RuneScape which brought the fastest smithing training methods.
Making gold bars here is considered to be the one of the most efficient smithing training methods in the game. Its possible to hire runners at the blast furnace to reach xp rates of over 500k per hour.
Aside from gold, the blast furnace can be a highly profitable training method where, with just steel bars, you can make 800k gp per hour. The highest profit rate comes from rune bars, netting around 1.6 mil profit per hour.
In2022, Jagex introduced the giants foundry to Oldschool, a smithing activity that provides competitive xp rates and big benefits for ironmen.
The activity involves smithing metals into large swords. It provides slower xp rates than gold at the blast furnace but it can be less expensive to train at the giants foundry.
There's a mechanic where you can recycle weapons and armour to be converted into metal, which is excellent for ironmen.
Low Level Training
Quicklinks
Questing
Regular Training
Questing
One of the best things to do as a low level smither is to complete quests.
On a brand new account, you can complete the Knight’s Swordquest which boosts you from level 1 to 29 smithing.
You do need a iron bars to complete it so ironmen can use the iron bar spawn in the wilderness. Many hardcore ironmen choose to do this immediately after creating their account.
For people with semi progressed accounts, you can also complete a range of other quests to go from level 1 to 39 smithing:
The Knight's Sword
Sleeping Giants
Elemental Workshop I and II
The Giant Dwarf
Heroes' Quest
Freeing Pirate Pete subquest
Regular Low Level Training
If you're not into questing, this is how you go from level 1 to level 40 by training normally.
You'll need:
572 Bronze bars
1070 Iron bars
102 Steel bars
It's recommended to smith items requiring the most amount of bars per item, so an example pathway would be daggers, scimitars, warhammers, then platebodies.
And you should smith bronze platebodies through to level 24, where you unlock iron warhammers, because bronze plates are faster than the 1 and 2 bar iron items. Then you do iron plates until 39, and to finish off the last level, you smith 34 steel warhammers.
If money is an issue, you can smith dart tips to earn some money back, but this does require the tourist trap quest.
The best place to train at a low level is at the varrock anvil.
Fastest Ways To 99
Quicklinks
Blast Furnace Gold
Platebodies
Giant's Foundry
Singing Crystal Armour
Blast Furnace Gold
Once you reach level 40 smithing, you unlock the fastest viable training method in the game, gold bars at the blast furnace.
This method gives up to 380k xp per hour from when you unlock it, making it the fastest from 40 all the way to 99. With 3 runners at the blast furnace, you can get over 600k smithing xp per hour, however this method is fairly new so its not easy to find runners.
To make gold at the blast furnace, there are some requirements.
Goldsmith Gauntlets:Having goldsmith gauntlets is a must, where wearing them gives 2.5 times the amount of experience when smithing gold.
Ice Gloves: Also extremely helpful with this method, and theyre obtained from killing the ice queen.Alternatively, you can use a bucket of water on each run however this is slower.
Stamina Potions:These are required to do this method effectively
Gold Ore: You will need gold ores
100K+ Coins:Lastly coins to pay the blast furnace workers
I'll briefly go over each component of the blast furnace. There's the bank on the southern wall of the furnace.
And towards the north there's the conveyer belt where you deposit your ores. In between is the bar dispenser and this is where you retrieve your created bars from.
Before starting this method, I highly recommend using the "Blast Furnace" runelite plugin since it tells you which stage youre at.
So your first step is to fill the coffer with coins, and every 10 minutes 2.5k coins are withdrawn from the coffer if youre under 60 smithing.
For all players on the official blast furnace worlds, theres an extra fee to train, totalling 72k per hour.
Then, have your goldsmith gauntlets equipped, and the ice gloves in your inventory. Then you withdraw an inventory of gold ores and you run to the nearby conveyer belt. Click on the belt to deposit your ores, then run down to the bar dispenser and stand on the southern side.
You need to be wearing the goldsmith gauntlets up until you get the xp drop, otherwise you get considerably less experience.
So once the xp drop comes, you swap to the ice gloves, then you click on the bar dispenser to withdraw the full inventory of bars. If you don’t have ice gloves, you can use your bucket of water on the dispenser, then click to retrieve the bars.
Then you run back to the bank, and as youre going to the bank, you can re equip your goldsmith gauntlets, then bank the bars, withdraw more ores, and repeat.
Smithing Platebodies
My preferred smithing training method is making platebodies at an anvil.
Platebodies are slower than gold at the blast furnace, but are more relaxed, requiring less focus and less clicking.
Your journey to 99 with platebodies can start as low as level 18 with bronze bodies, and with those you'll already get over 50k smithing xp per hour.
It scales up to 240k xp per hour with adamant platebodies, and since rune bodies are unlocked at level 99, adamant platebodies will be your main training method to 99. These are currently profitable, making them an excellent way to train to 99 smithing.
The Prifddinas anvil is the best place to smith since it’s the closest anvil to a bank, only 8 Tiles from the banker.
A close second is the Varrock anvil, which is 10 Tiles from the bank, and this anvil is accessible by anyone.
So the process involves firstly withdrawing a full inventory of bars, with a hammer in your inventory, or with the imcando Hammer equipped. Then you click on the anvil and select to create platebodies. Your character processes 5 platebodies per inventory, then you click on the bank, and repeat. On your second inventory, you can just press spacebar to smith the last created item, which would be a platebody.
When returning to the bank, if you interact with the banker directly, instead of clicking on the bank booth, you will access the bank 1 tile earlier.
This only slightly speeds up your xp rates, but if youre doing this to 99, those little increments do add up.
While platebodies are the fastest xp at an anvil, you can also smith 3 bar items for high xp rates and even longer afk times. Also, in some cases, you'll spend less money making 3 bar items over platebodies.
Here are some example 3 bar items you could create, along with their exp rate. For example, adamant warhammers give up to 180k xp per hour, with AFK intervals lasting 27 Seconds, whereas the afk interval with platebodies is only 15 Seconds.
The Giant's Foundry
The Giant's Foundry is another viable way to train your smithing, where you smelt sword commissions for rewards, and its located northeast of al kharid.
You can get there with a ring of dueling, a glory, or a minigame teleport goes straight there.
To start however, you will need to have completed the Sleeping Giants quest. You need 15 smithing to partake, and you'll also need bars or metal items.
For the Giant's Foundry, its also strongly recommended to have ice gloves too.
Doing sword commmissions here, you can expect over 90k xp per hour with bronze and iron alloys, scaling up to over 250k xp per hour with adamant rune alloys at 85 smithing.
However, mithril adamant alloys are the most cost effective method. On the screen are all of the combinations and rates. The higher level metals will give greater experience and minigame points.
This is a rundown of each component within the Giant's Foundry.
As you enter, youll find Kovac the giant, who is the person you get sword commissions from.
Just beyond him you can find the mold setup and the Crucible over the lava.
Just up the stairs further on there is a Bank Chest.
The Preform Storage is a way to save your progress.
There is also the Hammer, Grindstone, Polisher and waterfall objects.
There are also Buckets for water if youre not using ice gloves.
So to get started, get a sword commission from kovac, and with the sword, you have to balance the length, weight and sharpness of the blade.
At the mould setup, you choose a forte, blade and tip, aiming for the highest number bonus.
Purchasing molds permanently adds them to your library and are a necessity for the Giants’ Foundry. It can seem tough at first but once you unlock more moulds it gets a lot faster.
Next you deposit two different types of metal items, bars or armor, into the crucible over the lava.
The crucible can hold a total of 28 metal bars. Metal armour and weapon inputs are calculated as the smithing bar cost minus one.
Careful not to go over, you will get a warning and if you choose to proceed you will lose your bars. Also careful not to empty the crucible when right-click checking.
Alloys are always better to use as they give greater rewards, and alloys just mean 2 different types of metals at once.
You will see a bar at the top of your screen.
Depending what color the action required on the bottom bar is you will need to heat or cool your preform.
Dunking the preform in the lava and canceling just before the right temperature gauge level is a good way to save time.
To do the opposite and cool it, place the preform in the waterfall.
Then work the activity required, either the Trip Hammer which cools, the Grindstone which slowly heats, the Polishing Wheel which slowly cools.
If your bar at the top is outlined in yellow, you can click on the tool youre using to get a boost.
Try not to work the Blade unless it is in that specific temperature range. The top bar is the quality bar and will effect your rewards at the end. So this should never go down if you can manage it.
When your blade is complete talk to Kovac to receive your rewards. You get rewarded with gp from each sword completed, as well as xp.
Singing Crystal Armour
Next for the absolute fastest smithing experience in the game, singing crystal armour, which is only possible if you have lots and lots of coins.
The method involves turning crystal armour seeds into crystal armour, then dismantling them and repeating the process. For every crystal armour seed you use, you get 2.5K smithing xp, and you can process a whole inventory at once, giving a 67k smithing xp drop.
With that, you can get over 5 million smithing xp per hour, as well as 5 million crafting xp at the same time.
But this is extremely expensive, where its going to cost over 50 bil to go from when you unlock this method, through to 99.
AFK Methods
Quicklinks
Dart Tips
Gold Bars Furnace
Cannonballs
Smithing Dart Tips
Dart tips are possibly the best afk smithing method, mostly because they give fairly decent xp rates while giving a profit.
All of the dart tips up to adamant are profitable to make, then the ones above you'll lose a bit of money.
The xp rates range from 16K per hour with bronze, up to 97K per hour with rune.
So its nowhere near as fast as the fastest methods I have shown, but each inventory of dart tips gives an AFK interval of 81 Seconds.
A tip for smithing dart tips, since theyre stackable, you can have noted bars in your inventory, and when youre going to bank, you just use the noted bars on the banker and hold 1 to unnote them, then return to smithing.
This is faster than banking, with the downside of 1 less inventory space to smith.
Gold Bars Regular Furnace
Another great AFK smithing method is making gold bars at a regular furnace. With goldsmith gauntlets equipped, each gold bar gives 56 xp instead of 22.
With this, you can afk for 81 Seconds per inventory, which is a while, and you can expect a maximum xp rate of 63k xp per hour.
Doing this method from when you unlock it, all the way to 99, is going to cost 15 Mil, and will take 200 Hours in total.
Cannonballs
Cannonballs are the most AFK smithing method in the game, where each inventory takes 2 minutes and 30 seconds to complete.
But, despite being the most AFK, its very slow experience, earning about 15k xp per hour.
Jagex introduced the double Cannonball mould in 2022, which made this method a lot better than it was, but it is still quite slow.
Using the double cannonball mould also halves the afk time per inventory, from 2 minutes and 30 seconds down to 1 minute and 15 Seconds.
Profitable Methods
Quicklinks
Blast Furnace Intro
Blast Furnace Steel
Blast Furnace Mithril
Blast Furnace Adamant
Blast Furnace Rune
Cannonballs
Rune Items Anvil
Blast Furnace
The blast furnace can be highly profitable, and in this section ill show you every profitable method there.
Steel, mithril, adamant and rune bars are all highly profitable to smelt in the blast furnace, ranging from 800k gp per hour to 1.6 Mil.
For all of these methods, it helps immensely if you have a coal bag, which is obtained from the motherlode mine for 100 golden nuggets.
Without the coal bag, your profit rate gets basically halved.
BF Steel Bars
The first profitable blast furnace method im showing is steel bars, where you can get over 90K xp per hour, while profiting 800k if you have a coal bag. However, you do need 2 mil coins to buy the supplies to be able to smith for 1 hour.
Take note, that if you put iron ore into the blast furnace, it will turn into iron bars if you don’t add coal. So if its your first time here, you should add an inventory of coal first.
So for steel, you start by filling your coal bag at the bank, then fill your inventory with iron ore. Then you run to the belt and deposit the iron, empty the coal bag, and add the coal.
Then you go to the dispenser and grab the bars with your ice gloves equipped, and then you bank and repeat.
BF Mithril Bars
Next is mithril bars at the blast furnace, and these give around 105K xp per hour, while profiting 800k gp per hour. This time, you'll need 1.8 mil to buy all of the ores for 1 hour of smithing.
The process is a little different for this one since you need 2 coal for every mithril ore. So you start by filling your coal bag at the bank, and withdrawing a full inventory of mithril ore.
Then you place it all on the belt, and run back to the bank to withdraw more coal, filling your coal bag and inventory.
Then you place those on the belt, then grab the mithril bars from the dispenser, then bank them, and then you fill your coal bag, and withdraw an inventory of mithril ores again. And then you place them on the belt, and withdraw the bars, and then repeat from the beginning.
BF Adamant Bars
Now for adamant bars, and with these, you can expect 100k xp per hour, which is slower than mithril, only because it requires more coal deposits. But the profitability is quite a bit higher, at 1.4 mil gp per hour.
Since you require 3 coal per adamant ore, you start off by filling your coalbag and withdrawing an inventory of coal. Then you place it on the belt, and run back to the bank to fill your coal bag again, then withdraw an inventory of adamant ores. You then run to the belt and then collect your bars, and repeat.
BF Rune Bars
Rune bars are the most profitable, requiring 85 Smithing, and giving xp rates of over 100K xp per hour. Overall, you can make 1.6 Mil gp per hour doing this method, and is one of the best smithing money makers in the game. BUT… you need 25 mil to be able to do this method for 1 hour straight.
You start by placing coal from your coal bag plus inventory into the conveyor belt, then you go to the bank and do 1 more trip of coal only, using your coal bag. On the next trip, you bring rune ore and a full coal bag to the belt, then you grab the rune bars from the dispenser, then you go to the bank and repeat.
Cannonballs
Making cannonballs has been a smithing money maker since they were released in 2003, but fairly recently, jagex introduced the double ammo mould, which doubles the amount of cannonballs you make.
Using the regular cannonball mould, you average about 200k in profit per hour, then with the double ammo mould, its 400k.
To do this, you need 35 smithing and the dwarf cannon quest to make them, and to get the double ammo mould, you have to earn it from the giants foundry.
Cannonballs are made at any furnace, and the edgeville furnace is the closest to a bank, and has no requirements.
With the double cannonball mould, if you go from 35 to 99 smithing, you'll profit 170 mil but its going to take over 400 hours.
Without the mould, you'll still profit 170 mil, but it will take over 800 hours.
Overall, I don’t recommend making cannonballs, but if you have 5 accounts going, all making cannonballs, I could see it being worthwhile.
Rune Items
At level 98 smithing, you can boost with a dwarven stout to make level 99 rune items. Most 3 bar rune items are profitable to smith, like the rune 2h, platelegs and plateskirts.
Theres some discords and friends chats out there where people buy these items in bulk to alch and avoid the ge tax. One of those clans is the "W308 anvil" clan chat.
Since these methods require 99 smithing, this method is more for those going for 200 million xp.
If you went from 99 to 200 million smithing xp, making rune 2h swords, you would profit 565 mil.
Ironman Methods
At a lower level, ironmen should always aim to complete the Knight's Sword quest to bypass the slow early levels.
Obtaining Ores
As an ironman, the majority of your time is spent obtaining ores, bars and metals to use with smithing.
The motherlode mine is a great place to aquire ores, where youll usually get around 500 ores per hour, and its decently afk.
Regular mining can be another source of ores, however waiting until youre further into the game can be beneficial, when you have more gold and more money makers.
This is because you can buy ores from the blast furnace shop to get the most ores per hour as an ironman.
Giants Foundry
The introduction of the giants foundry was an excellent addition for ironmen, where it provides decent smithing xp rates, and ironmen can use leftover bars and metal items from pvm drops.
It's a resource efficient way to train your smithing, making it the perfect place for ironmen to train.
You can buy ores from the blast furnace, turn them into bars at the blast furnace, then use those bars at the giants foundry or to smith platebodies.
High level ironmen will also get a significant chunk of smithing experience from creating items like dart tips for raids and bossing.
F2P Methods
Now moving into the final section of the guide, free to play smithing training.
Free to play players have access to the knights sword quest, which is by far the fastest way to train from 1 to 29 smithing.
Platebodies
The fastest smithing method in free to play, is smithing platebodies.
making the best platebody you can all the way to 99, you'll actually break even since adamant platebodies are currently profitable to make, and will take around 70 hours to reach 99.
The best anvil to use in free to play is the varrock anvil, it’s the closest to the bank.
For more tips on platebody smithing, you can skip back to the platebodies section of this guide.
Under White Wolf Mountain
A free to play smithing method that was introduced in 2021 is barronite. This requires full completion of the below ice mountain quest, and basically while mining barronite rocks, you occasionally get barronite deposits.
You can then take those deposits to the nearby anvil to get 30 smithing xp per piece. This method is mostly good for free to play ironmen since the barronite deposits are untradeable drops.
Guide Recap
Smithing Basics
Low Level Training
Fastest Ways To 99
AFK Methods
Profitable Methods
Ironman Methods
F2P Methods