Giants' Foundry

This article has a strategy guide.

All information on mechanics and strategy will be on this page.

This article has a calculator here.

Calculators determine experience and costs based on real-time prices from the Grand Exchange Market Watch.

Giants' Foundry
Released								8 June 2022 (Update)
Type								Minigame
Members								Yes
Location								Giants' Plateau
League region								Desert✓
Skills								Smithing
Music								The Foundry
Map
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Giants' Foundry is a Smithing minigame in which players are tasked with creating giant weapons for Kovac. To participate in the minigame, players must complete the Sleeping Giants quest.

The minigame was first pitched in a blog on 19 April 2022 and subsequently polled with 90.3% of the votes in favour of its addition. It was released on 8 June 2022.

Required items

To participate in The Giants' Foundry you will require the following items:

• Metal bars or equipment that can be forged from metal bars that have a cost of at least 2 bars. (armour and weapons bronze to rune)
• A bucket (can be obtained at The Giants' Foundry) or Ice gloves to pick up moulded weapons

Getting there

The Giants' Foundry is located in a cave beneath the Giants' Plateau. Players can get there by using:

• The Grouping teleport to the Giants' Foundry
• An amulet of glory teleport to the Al Kharid Palace
• A ring of dueling teleport to the Emir's Arena
• The gnome glider flight to Kar-Hewo
• The toll gate from Lumbridge

Gameplay

See a more visual representation of Giants' Foundry gameplay here, from a Q&A with Mod Oasis.

In the minigame, players are tasked by Kovac to create weapons for other giants, using the machinery around the foundry.

Setup

The Mould Library interface.

Players must pick up a commission from Kovac, set the mould, fill the crucible, and pour the desired liquid metal. A bank chest is freely available near the crucible.

The crucible can only be filled with metal bars or metal items that can be produced using the Smithing skill, and that have a cost of at least 2 bars. This specifically excludes items such as black/white equipment, dragon equipment, as well as trimmed armour sets, among others, as they cannot be made using this skill.

Commissions define the kind of blade players will be making based on two descriptive words. For example, Kovac will instruct the player to make a sword that is "narrow" and "spiked". Players will need to keep that description in mind when choosing a mould from Kovac's Mould Library for the best matching one. The closer the match, the higher quality the sword will be when players start forging. Note that the points gained here won't affect how difficult it is to make the sword; that is instead determined by the type of metal players choose.

With the mould set, players must move on to the crucible (the big stone vessel chained above the lava), which stores the molten metal bars that are heated up in the forging process. The crucible will accept up to 28 standard metal bars (the amount required to smith a giant's sword), as well as metal weapons and armour, though the weapons and armour will be worth one less bar than it takes to make them. Attempting to insert items worth more bars than the crucible has space for will warn the player that any excess metal will be destroyed. The crucible can be emptied if incorrect items are inserted, but this will destroy all metal inside.

Once the crucible has been filled, the molten metal can be poured into the mould. A crucible cannot be poured if another preform has already been poured and not yet handed in.

The higher the tier of metal that is chosen, the more steps it will take to forge the sword, and temperature will have to be regulated more strictly. Swords made of an alloy (a mixture of two or more different metals) yield better results. Commissions may be cancelled by talking to Kovac.

Refinement

The Refinement HUD.

The refinement process involves shaping the raw preform into a giant's sword.

Players have a variety of tools at their disposal:

• Trip hammer: Requiring a hot sword, this tool is used to hammer out the imperfections on the blade. Every 5th tick, the sword gains 2% progress and cools down by 2.5%.
• Grindstone: Swords must be at a Medium Temperature to allow this tool to grind out the edge of the sword and make it smooth. Every 2nd tick, the sword gains 1% progress and heats up by 1.5%.
• Polishing wheel: Cool the sword to a Cold Temperature to use this tool, which cleans up the blade and gives it a lovely shiny finish. Every 2nd tick, the sword gains 1% progress and cools down by 1.7%.
• Lava pool - Dip your sword into the lava to heat it up, ensuring it's hot enough to use certain tools. There are two right-click options:
  • Heat-preform - This starts heating the preform at a slow rate that increases over time, until interrupted.
  • Dunk-preform - This starts heating the preform at a fast rate that increases over time, until interrupted.
• Waterfall - Use the crashing waves of the waterfall to cool your sword down in order to use certain tools. There are two right-click options:
  • Cool-preform - This starts cooling the preform at a slow rate that increases over time, until interrupted.
  • Quench-preform - This starts cooling the preform at a fast rate that increases over time, until interrupted.
• Preform Storage - Place the preform in this handy storage area whenever you need to interrupt refinement for any reason. This shall maintain the progress and heat on the same level from the moment it is placed, until it is picked up again. The player may leave the Foundry and come back anytime. When returning or logging in, a chat message will appear: "You notice your current commission is being kept warm in the preform storage."

Use the right tool at the right temperature to increase the sword's completion to 100%. For each successful use of a machine (not the waterfall or the lava pool), a small amount of Smithing experience is awarded. Players can track which tool to use at which heat range using the in-game HUD. When an indicator arrow actually lies within a certain range of temperature or progress, that block of temp/progress gains a white border, aiding with cases where the indicator may be right at the edge of a range or in between steps.

Using tools changes the temperature of the preform, which will also naturally cool down over time. Using the incorrect tool, or using the right tool outside the correct temperature range, will damage the sword and reduce its quality. If the quality of the sword reaches 0, players will have to hand it over to Kovac and try again. Quality cannot be regained or increased.

Sweet Spot - Occasionally, the entire refinement HUD will gain a thick yellow/gold border, indicating a window for a sweet spot, which is open for approximately 6 seconds (10 ticks). They appear only while a player is working a machine, immediately after the machine ticks. During this time, clicking the machine again once will change the border to green, which results in a large amount of progress gain (around 5%) upon the machine's next tick. However, the required tool and temperature as displayed on the HUD still must be observed and ignoring this will result in damage to the preform instead. The sweet spot may frequently push progress into the next section and require a new tool, so the player should be ready to click away from the machine before the machine ticks again. Clicking the machine repeatedly off this bonus window will cause the next action to be skipped and will not damage the preform.

These progress bonuses will only be offered a certain number of times per sword (6 and 7 section swords get three sweet spots, otherwise there are two). Missing a sweet spot wastes it; it still counts towards the limit. Most commonly, they appear once per section, relatively evenly distributed along the refinement progress, but this is not a firm rule - they may appear less evenly.

More information about refinement technique can be found in the minigames' strategy guide.

Handing in

	Commission complete!
The jingle that plays upon handing the sword to Kovac.
File:Giants' Foundry - handing in sword.ogg

If players manage to reach 100% completion without ruining the sword, they can hand it to Kovac, who'll reward players with a lump sum of Smithing experience, coins, and foundry reputation. The player's run energy is also restored by 50%. The higher the quality of the sword, the greater the rewards they receive. The gold reward is deposited directly into player's bank and the player receives a chat message noting such, in addition to the total amount of swords produced thus far. Ultimate Ironmen will get the gold reward in their inventory.

The player is shown the sword's final quality and the time taken to complete the sword, which begins the moment they are assigned a commission and is stopped with the hand-in, but using preform storage does not pause this time. The current personal best (PB) result is also displayed: PB is determined by the highest quality achieved, time is only taken into account when a sword of equal quality is handed in, in which case shorter is better.

The player may ask to be issued a new commission immediately, in which case the entire gameplay loop (and the sword timer) starts anew.

Sword quality

The quality of a sword determines how much experience it rewards, the amount of reputation rewarded, and also the difficulty of making the sword. The initial quality of the sword is equal to the metal score plus the mould score, and can be as low as 10 (all bronze bars, no matching mould) and as high as 199 (equal parts adamant and runite, +69 mould). 10 quality points are lost whenever you damage the sword by using the wrong tool or at the wrong temperature. If you completely ruin the quality of the sword this way, you will stop being able to work on the sword anymore. This will put the message This sword is too damaged to keep working. You should give it to Kovac and try again. into the chatbox, and Kovac will only give you 30 coins and 60 Smithing XP for the 0 quality sword, regardless of materials or moulds.

Metal score

Sword quality is primarily determined by the quality of metal used. While higher tier metals give more points than lower tier metals, the best way to gain points is to combine multiple types of metal in the crucible, making an alloy. For example, an entirely rune sword has a base value of 60, but a sword made of equal parts adamant and rune has over double the base value, at 130. Adding bars to the crucible requires the same level as smelting that type of ore in a furnace. Players can use temporary boosts to add higher tier bars to the crucible. The crucible can also be filled without needing to finish the previous commission, so one boost can fill the metal for two swords.

The formula for an approximate alloy's value ${\textstyle V_{\text{total}}}$ is:

${\begin{aligned}V_{\text{total}}&=\left\lfloor {\frac {\lfloor 10V_{1}\rfloor +\lfloor 10V_{2}\rfloor +\lfloor V_{1}V_{2}\rfloor }{10}}\right\rfloor ,\\{\text{where }}V_{n}&={\frac {10\times {\text{Tier}}_{n}\times {\text{Amount}}_{n}}{28}}\\{\text{for }}n&\in \{1,2\}\end{aligned}}$

Here, ${\textstyle {\text{Tier}}}$ is equal to 1 for bronze, 2 for iron, and so on up to 6 for rune. ${\textstyle {\text{Amount}}}$ is the number of bars (or equivalent) of that metal present in the alloy. Alloys with more than two metals present (e.g. a mixture of steel, mithril, and adamant) negatively impact metal score as the metal of lowest amount is disregarded, making its de-facto bar slots contribute nothing to the score. In the equation above only the two most abundant metals are used as ${\textstyle V_{1}}$ and ${\textstyle V_{2}}$. Ties prefer the more valuable metal. If a pure metal is used, then that metal is used as ${\textstyle V_{1}}$ and a value of ${\textstyle 0}$ is used for ${\textstyle V_{2}}$.

Lovakite, Blurite, and elemental equipment or bars cannot be used.

The following table displays some example scores. Alloys are particularly chosen so that their score is the highest possible for a given difficulty, which may be useful for some players starting out with the minigame. The most optimal alloys are available in the strategy guide.

Alloy	Level	Score	Difficulty
All Bronze	15	10	Lowest
All Iron	15	20	Low
All Steel	30	30	Low
All Mithril	50	40	Low
All Adamant	70	50	Low
All Rune	85	60	Medium
19 Steel / 9 Mithril	50	59	Low
18 Mithril / 10 Adamant	70	89	Medium
19 Adamant / 9 Rune	85	118	High
14 Adamant / 14 Rune	85	130	Highest

Note: these are examples of alloys, for optimal alloys, visit the strategy guide.

Recycling equipment

Main article: /Strategies § Obtaining materials for smithing

Players may also break down metal weapons and armour that can be created through the Smithing skill that use at least two bars to create, which provides an amount equal to one fewer bar than used to create the item.

Equipment type	Bar value
Dart tips, arrowtips, File:Steel bolts (unf).pngunfinished bolts, File:Steel javelin heads.pngjavelin heads, nails, knifes	0
Pickaxes, spears, hastae, halberds	0
Swords, med helms, daggers, maces, axes, crossbow limbs	0
Scimitars, longswords, full helms, square shields, claws	1
Warhammers, battleaxes, chainbodies, kiteshields, 2h swords, platelegs, plateskirts	2
Platebodies	4

Difficulty

The higher the metal score of the sword, the harder it is to make. This manifests in the number of distinct hammer/grind/polish sections to be completed:

Alloy tier	Metal score	Sections
Lowest	10-19	3
Low	20-59	4
Medium	60-89	5
High	90-119	6
Highest	120-130	7

Additionally, the size of the temperature bars decreases as the metal score increases, scaling linearly down to half of the full size at 130 points. It may be worthwhile to purposefully lower the metal score to obtain swords of lower difficulty to learn playing the minigame.

Mould score

The mould score is the sum of the bonuses for the two styles in your commission. The very best possible mould score is 69 points on a Light Flat commission, using optimal moulds. With only default moulds, the best possible score is 46 points on a Narrow Heavy commission. Other commissions have best possible scores in the high 50s to 60s. The very worst commission is Broad Light at 24 (default moulds) or 49 (optimal moulds) points.

The mould score does not affect the difficulty of the sword in any way. It is recommended to always use the best available moulds and to unlock the optimal ones as soon as possible.

Moulds

Main article: Giants' Foundry/Mould List

Default moulds

The following table contains a list of all Giants' Foundry mould pieces that are unlocked by default:

Mould name	Mould type	Style						Optimal commissions
		Broad	Narrow	Heavy	Light	Spiked	Flat
Chopper Forte	Forte	4	0	0	4	0	4	0
Gladius Ricasso	Forte	4	0	4	0	0	4	0
Disarming Forte	Forte	0	4	0	4	4	0	0
Medusa Ricasso	Forte	8	0	6	0	0	8	0
Serpent Ricasso	Forte	0	6	0	8	0	8	0
Serrated Forte	Forte	0	8	8	0	6	0	1
Saw Blade	Blade	4	0	0	4	4	0	0
Defenders Edge	Blade	4	0	4	0	4	0	0
Fish Blade	Blade	0	4	0	4	0	4	0
Medusa Blade	Blade	8	0	8	0	0	6	0
Stiletto Blade	Blade	0	8	0	6	0	8	0
Gladius Edge	Blade	0	6	8	0	0	8	0
People Poker Point	Tip	0	4	4	0	0	4	0
Chopper Tip	Tip	4	0	0	4	4	0	0
Medusa's Head	Tip	4	0	4	0	4	0	0
Serpent's Fang	Tip	0	8	0	6	8	0	0
Gladius Point	Tip	0	8	8	0	0	6	0
Saw Tip	Tip	6	0	8	0	8	0	1

Purchasable moulds

The table below lists all of the purchasable moulds and their requirements. Purchasing all of them costs a total of 5400 foundry reputation points. You may boost to buy and use moulds that you do not have the level for, but you will NOT be able to use them if your level drops below the requirement before pouring the melted metal into the mould. Once poured, you can finish off the preform, even if your level drops below the requirement for the moulds used in making the preform.

Level	Mould name	Mould type	Cost (Rep)	Style						Optimal commissions
				Broad	Narrow	Heavy	Light	Spiked	Flat
50	Stiletto Forte	Forte	300	0	8	0	10	0	8	2
51	Defender Base	Forte	300	8	0	10	0	0	8	1 + 1 tied
61	Juggernaut Forte	Forte	350	4	0	4	0	16	0	0
70	Chopper Forte +1	Forte	400	3	0	0	4	0	18	3 + 1 tied
79	Spiker!	Forte	450	0	1	2	0	22	0	4
48	Flamberge Blade	Blade	300	0	8	0	8	10	0	1
50	Serpent Blade	Blade	300	0	10	0	8	0	8	1
59	Claymore Blade	Blade	350	16	0	4	0	0	4	2
71	Fleur de Blade	Blade	400	4	0	18	0	1	0	4
80	Choppa!	Blade	450	1	0	0	22	0	2	4
49	Corrupted Point	Tip	300	0	8	0	10	8	0	0
52	Defenders Tip	Tip	300	10	0	8	0	8	0	2 + 1 tied
60	Serrated Tip	Tip	350	0	4	0	16	4	0	2
69	Needle Point	Tip	400	0	18	0	3	0	4	3 + 1 tied
81	The Point!	Tip	450	2	0	0	1	0	22	3 + 1 tied

Best mould combinations

The following table contains a list of the best mould combinations for various objectives. It assumes you want to maximise the sum of both objectives. If the player already meets the level requirement to use all of the purchasable moulds, then there is no need to purchase the Juggernaut Forte and the Corrupted Point moulds from the shop, as they are never optimal. The Juggernaut Forte mould becomes obsolete at level 79, and the Corrupted Point mould at level 60.

Default Moulds

Commission	Forte	Blade	Tip	Score
Broad Heavy	Medusa Ricasso	Medusa Blade	Saw Tip	44 (22+22)
Broad Light	Medusa Ricasso/Chopper Forte	Medusa Blade/Saw Blade	Chopper Tip	24 (20+4)
Broad Spiked	Medusa Ricasso	Medusa Blade/Saw Blade/Defender's Edge	Saw Tip	30 (22+8)
Broad Flat	Medusa Ricasso	Medusa Blade	Saw Tip/Gladius Point	36 (22+14)
Narrow Heavy	Serrated Forte	Gladius Edge	Gladius Point	46 (22+24)
Narrow Light	Serpent Ricasso	Stiletto Blade	Serpent's Fang	42 (22+20)
Narrow Spiked	Serrated Forte	Stiletto Blade	Serpent's Fang	38 (24+14)
Narrow Flat	Serpent Ricasso	Stiletto Blade	Gladius Point	44 (22+22)
Heavy Spiked	Serrated Forte	Gladius Edge/Medusa Blade/Defender's Edge	Saw Tip	38 (24+14)
Heavy Flat	Medusa Ricasso	Gladius Edge	Gladius Point	44 (22+22)
Light Spiked	Serpent Ricasso/Disarming Forte	Saw Blade	Serpent's Fang	30 (18+12)
Light Flat	Serpent Ricasso	Stiletto Blade	Gladius Point	36 (14+22)

The average mould score using the optimal default moulds is 38.

All Moulds

Default moulds are highlighted in bold.

Level	Commission	Forte	Blade	Tip	Score
71	Broad Heavy	Defender Base	Fleur de Blade	Defenders Tip	58 (22+36)
80	Broad Light	Stiletto Forte	Choppa!	Serrated Tip	49 (1+48)
79	Broad Spiked	Spiker!	Claymore Blade	Defenders Tip	56 (26+30)
81	Broad Flat	Chopper Forte +1	Claymore Blade	The Point!	65 (21+44)
71	Narrow Heavy	Serrated Forte	Fleur de Blade	Needle Point	52 (26+26)
80	Narrow Light	Stiletto Forte	Choppa!	Needle Point	61 (26+35)
79	Narrow Spiked	Spiker!	Flamberge Blade	Needle Point	59 (27+32)
70	Narrow Flat	Chopper Forte +1	Serpent Blade	Needle Point / The Point!	58 (28+30)
79	Heavy Spiked	Spiker!	Fleur de Blade	Saw Tip / Defenders Tip	59 (28+31)
81	Heavy Flat	Defender Base / Chopper Forte +1	Fleur de Blade	The Point!	58 (28+30)
80	Light Spiked	Spiker!	Choppa!	Serrated Tip	64 (38+26)
81	Light Flat	Chopper Forte +1	Choppa!	The Point!	69 (27+42)

The average mould score using optimal purchased moulds is 59.

Experience

The player will be gaining small amounts of Smithing experience throughout the refinement process:

• 3.3 experience for successfully using the polishing wheel
• 3.2 experience for successfully using the grindstone
• 4.5 experience for successfully using the trip hammer

Catching a sweet spot doubles the experience gain of the next use.

Most of the experience, however, is gained from handing in a sword as you finish the minigame. This experience dump is based solely on a sword's quality $q$, where $q$ = mould score + metal score - mistakes.

The amount of Smithing experience gained for turning in a sword with quality $q$ is

$\left(\left\lfloor {\frac {q^{2}}{73}}\right\rfloor +\lfloor 1.5q\rfloor +1\right)\times 30$

Which ranges from 30 experience for turning in a sword of 0 quality, up to 25,230 experience for a sword with the maximum quality of 199.

Template:Calculator:Giants Foundry experience calculatorMore detailed earning rates for experience and gold are available in the strategy guide.

Jagex calculations

Jagex provided the following comparison tables in the patch notes on release:

Alloy tier comparison

Alloy tier	Swords per hour	Average XP per sword	Average XP per hour	Average GP/XP	Profitable
Lowest	20	~2,400	~48,000	−0.2	No
Low	17	~5,000	~85,000	0.3	Yes
Medium	15	~9,000	~135,000	0.2	Yes
High	13	~15,000	~195,000	−0.5	No
Highest	12	~23,000	~276,000	−6.6	No

Training method comparison

Method	XP per hour (Estimate)	Average GP/XP	Profitable
Gold at Blast Furnace - no goldsmith gauntlets	~150,000	−8.7	No
Gold at Blast Furnace - with goldsmith gauntlets	~375,000	−3.5	No
Steel at Blast Furnace - with coal bag	~90,000	12.3	Yes
Creating 5 bar mithril items	~190,000 - 210,000	−3.7	No
Creating 5 bar adamant items	~240,000 - 260,000	−1.3	No
Creating 3 bar rune items	~290,000 - 310,000	0.8	Yes

Rewards

Main article: Giants' Foundry Reward Shop

Players can gain Foundry Reputation by completing commissions. Reputation is awarded equal to the final quality for the sword, calculated by adding the metal and mould scores and subtracting 5 for each mistake. It can be spent on additional moulds for each preform section, allowing for a higher base mould score at the beginning of forging, or in the Reward Shop.

In addition, a gold reward based on the quality of the sword is also received. The gold reward is calculated as double the experience reward. Because of this, it is possible for forging swords to be profitable, especially using steel bars or a 14/14 steel and mithril blend, assuming no mistakes and optimal moulds are used.

Giants Foundry Item Rewards

Item		Foundry Reputation
	Double ammo mould	2,000
	Kovac's grog	300
	Smithing catalyst	15
	Ore pack	200
	Smiths tunic	4,000
	Smiths trousers	4,000
	Smiths boots	3,500
	Smiths gloves	3,500
	Colossal blade	5,000

Changes

Date	Changes
[[{{#explode:8 February 2023| |0}} {{#explode:8 February 2023| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:8 February 2023| |2}}]] (update | poll)	Kovac will now buy back all items from the Giants' Foundry Reward Shop, besides the Colossal blade and Kovac's grog, for 80% of their purchase price.
[[{{#explode:13 July 2022| |0}} {{#explode:13 July 2022| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:13 July 2022| |2}}]] (update)	The reward shop is now protected by the Bank PIN. Coins rewarded from commissions can now take the slot of a coin placeholder, if there is one.
[[{{#explode:29 June 2022| |0}} {{#explode:29 June 2022| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:29 June 2022| |2}}]] (update)	Coins rewarded from commissions are now sent straight to the bank. Kovac now displays the total number of swords made in chat on every sword handed in. Progress bonus windows are now more evenly distributed.
[[{{#explode:15 June 2022| |0}} {{#explode:15 June 2022| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:15 June 2022| |2}}]] (update)	The mould setup interface will now display the best moulds first. Removed Kovac's confirmation dialogue when asking for a commission in order to make back-to-back commissions feel a bit smoother. Changed animations so that players are now able to move while examining a finished sword prior to hand-in. Using the "X" option when adding armour or weapons to the Giants' Foundry crucible will now remember the last number input as a new option next time the dialogue is opened, so players can keep adding the same amount to the crucible. The scroll position reset issue has been fixed so players will no longer see any dead space in the mould jig. Players will now actually face the mould jig when they use it.
8–15 June 2022 (update)	Hotfix Players will no longer erroneously lose quality when clicking the Drop Hammer at a specific time. Using items on the Polishing Wheel to repair it no longer fixes the Drop Hammer.

Gallery

• 
  Concept art of the Giants' Foundry by Mod Jerv.
• 
  Initial concept art for the Smiths' Uniform, by Mod Soffan.
• 
  Updated concept art for the Smiths' Uniform.

Trivia

• The Trip hammer as depicted in the concept art and the in-game model would not actually function mechanically because the cam wheel is on the wrong side of the lever.
• Giants' Foundry's status as a "minigame" was in contention during development, resulting in the outcome where it is now the only activity that has a collection log in the Minigames tab but no red star on the world map.

Developers

• Main developer(s): Mod Oasis, Mod Dylan
• Quality Assurance: Mod Moogle
• Art: Mod Brow, Mod Ry, Mod Soffan, Mod West
• Audio: Mod Grace