Content
- Why Should I Do The Knight's Quest?
- What If I Don'T Want To Do The Knight's Quest?
- The Best Equipment For Smithing
- What About The Blast Furnace?
- How Do I Become Efficient In The Blast Furnace?
- Important Smithing Locations
Smithing in Old School RuneScape has historically been one of the most sought-after skills for its money-making potential. If you're an Ironman, it's also going to be the way to get your rune gear – unless you're planning on looting drops every time you need new equipment. Smithing, while straightforward, provides a lot of different ways to train, from grinding to questing to the blast furnace, as well as Smithing bars and creating gear. It's just an all-around valuable thing to skill. There are many ways to approach this skill, and each will depend on what your goals are. No matter who you are, though, you're probably going to want to get started with The Knight's Quest in this OSRS Smithing Guide.
Why Should I Do The Knight's Quest?
This is a medium-length quest (about three hours of playtime) and will bump you all the way to level 29 from level 1, which is as fast or faster than could be done while grinding bronze items. I'm a big proponent of questing for levels if you can to get started because:
- They're much more engaging and entertaining to do than grinding for experience at low levels with low rates
- You're likely to do them eventually anyway, so it makes sense to do them while the rewards are still beneficial compared to when you get to higher levels.
What If I Don't Want to Do The Knight's Quest?
Well, you can always do things the old-fashioned way. If you're buying your materials, Smithing will be far more expensive to train, but for many players, this is a cost-effective investment if you intend on using the Blast Furnace (more on that later.) If you're buying materials, buy bronze bars, or if you've stashed some ore away from mining, you'll need tin and bronze to make bronze bars. I do not recommend buying ores, as these are more expensive than bars, and your experience rates are better when creating the highest-level bronze item you can get per bar, instead of creating half an inventory of bronze bars. I recommend making bronze items straight through to level 25 or 30, as it can be more cost-effective than switching over to iron halfway through. Once you reach level 30, you're ready to move onto the blast furnace.
The Best Equipment for Smithing
There are two kinds of methods every player should know if they want to learn about the skill: Smelting and Smithing. Smelting will require you to have ores in your inventory which you'll put in the furnace. In doing so, the ores will turn into bars. On the other hand, Smithing is much more advanced and will require you to have these items:
- Bars – To start doing some Smithing in the first place, you'll need to have some bars in your inventory. These can be gathered from smelting ores or purchased in the Grand Exchange.
- Hammer – You can purchase the Hammer from either the General Store or the Grand Exchange. The Hammer is an essential item used to smith the bars into armor and weapons.
What About the Blast Furnace?
To access the Blast Furnace, you must have at least started The Giant Dwarf quest. Once you've done so, you can easily access Keldagrim anytime by using the hole in the northwest corner of the Grand Exchange to travel there via the minecart system. The Blast Furnace is in the basement of the building just north of the minecart tracks.
Most players make one mistake before getting started with the Blast Furnace: not fulfilling the proper prerequisites to make it worthwhile. If you're using the automated worlds (358, 386, 387), you'll be handing over 12,000 GP for every ten minutes you want to use the Blast Furnace and 2500 additional GP if you're below Smithing level 60. Despite this, you can still turn high profits, upward of 500 thousand GP per hour, IF you know what you're doing. The trick is to cut down on time wasted by as much as possible. Runescape is a game of efficiency. You can still get some use from the Blast Furnace without following this order, but if you want to be most effective, you'll want to do everything listed below.
How do I Become Efficient in The Blast Furnace?
Stamina potions (or the Graceful outfit). The Blast furnace requires you to be running back and forth, so you'll want to make the most of your time by wearing a complete Graceful outfit and using Stamina potions to supplement your energy. Finally, carry stamina potions, as you do not want to waste time (and money) walking.
Get some Ice Gloves. This is the shortest time investment you can make to save yourself one inventory space per trip (as you won't have to carry a water bucket.) Though that doesn't sound like a lot, it adds up to a lot, as you can easily make over 100 furnace trips in an hour, which means you'd be losing at least 50,000 GP per hour if you're making steel bars. That's a steep cut into your profit margin and highlights how every second counts at the blast furnace. You must kill the Ice Queen located below White Wolf Mountain to get your ice gloves. There's a safe spot in the southeast corner of her room, but you shouldn't have much trouble if you're combat is 45 or above.
Get a coal bag. This is a prolonged investment, especially if you haven't spent a lot of time mining in the Motherload Mine in the past, but it's necessary if you expect to make a serious profit. Without a coal bag, you'll have to make separate trips for every inventory of bars you want to make. You don't need to bother with this if you're Smithing gold bars. The coal bag can be obtained for 100 gold nuggets at the motherload mine.
Get Goldsmith Gauntlets. For those who will be Smithing gold bars, who may have heard of the mythical 300k+ exp/hour rates, you don't want to waste your efforts by not using these gloves. The goldsmith gauntlets provide you double the experience of Smithing gold bars, and you literally cannot afford not to be using them. The goldsmith gauntlets are a reward from the Family Crest quest.
Important Smithing Locations
Since your inventory will undoubtedly be constantly filled with ores and bars when Smithing, you'll need to go to the Bank a lot, keeping that in mind, here are the best locations to train your Smithing skill:
For Anvils
- Yanille – You can find anvils near the South of the Yanille bank.
- Tai Bwo Wannai – There's an anvil near the Northern hut in Tai Bwo Wannai. However, you'll need first to complete a specific quest to unlock this location.
- Varrock – Anvils can be found in the Western bank of Varrock. This is the best location on this list since there's a bank right next to the anvils.
For Furnaces
- Edgeville – Close by the bank in Edgeville is a furnace. By wearing Varrock armor in this location, you can get a +10% chance to smelt 2 bars instead of one. This location is closest to the bank and no longer requires completing the Varrock diary to use the furnace.
- Falador – Go to the East of the Falador bank to get to the furnace. The only caveat when choosing this location is that you'll have to run around a lot.
- Al-Kharid – Go to the North of the Al-Kharid bank to find the furnace. This location is great for F2P players since there's a nearby bank.
Happy Smithing!
With all these items in place, you're set up to turn a serious profit at the Blast Furnace, but if you're only in it for the experience rates, then you'll want to be using the goldsmith gauntlets and Smithing gold after level 40. This can be quite costly, tallying over 50 million GP from level 40 to level 99. However, it might be worth it to get your skill cape! Thanks for checking out this OSRS Smithing Guide!
