Free-to-play Smithing training

For a list of furnaces, see Furnace.

This guide outlines the best methods for training the Smithing skill in free-to-play. There are a few ways to profit with Smithing in free-to-play, such as smelting bars or making rune equipment, however it is more beneficial to simply perform the fastest experience methods and use the saved time to make money from alternative methods.

Experience gained is based off the number of bars used, therefore using larger amounts of bars at once yields the highest experience rates, meaning Smithing platebodies is always the fastest experience.

Efficient training

Levels 1-29: The Knight's Sword

It is highly recommended to complete The Knight's Sword quest immediately for the reward of 12,725 Smithing experience, enough to level Smithing from 1 to 29.

Levels 1-5: Bronze axes

Smith bronze axes to level 5 for 12.5 experience each.

• Starting experience: 0
• Experience required: 388
• Ending experience: 400
• Bronze bars required: 32
• Input cost: 4,384
• Profit: −2,176 coins (−68 each)
• High alchemy ( 55 ) profit: −7,520 coins (−235 each)

Levels 5-9: Bronze scimitars

Smith bronze scimitars from levels 5 to 9 for 25 experience each.

• Starting experience: 400
• Experience required: 569
• Ending experience: 975
• Bronze bars required: 46
• Input cost: 6,302
• Profit: −4,439 coins (−193 each)
• High alchemy ( 55 ) profit: −8,326 coins (−362 each)

Levels 9-18: Bronze warhammers

Smith bronze warhammers from levels 9 to 18 for 37.5 experience each.

• Starting experience: 975
• Experience required: 2,548
• Ending experience: 3,523
• Bronze bars required: 204
• Input cost: 27,948
• Profit: −23,800 coins (−350 each)
• High alchemy ( 55 ) profit: −33,320 coins (−490 each)

Levels 18/29-33: Bronze platebodies

Smith bronze platebodies from level 18 (or 29 if The Knight's Sword has been completed) to 33 for 62.5 experience each.

• Starting experience: 3,525
• Experience required: 14,722
• Ending experience: 18,247
• Bronze bars required: 1,180
• Input cost: 161,660
• Profit: −138,768 coins (−588 each)
• High alchemy ( 55 ) profit: −164,256 coins (−696 each)

Starting at 29:

• Starting experience: 12,725
• Experience required: 5,522
• Ending experience: 18,200
• Bronze bars required: 445 (299 bars if you are smelting the bars yourself)
• Input cost: 60,965
• Profit: −52,332 coins (−588 each)
• High alchemy ( 55 ) profit: −61,944 coins (−696 each)

Level 33-48: Iron platebodies

Smith iron platebodies from levels 33 to 48 for 125 experience each.

• Starting experience: 18,287.5
• Experience required: 64,726.5
• Ending experience: 83,014
• Iron bars required: 2,590 (1,735 bars if you are smelting the bars yourself)
• Input cost: 567,210
• Profit: −514,374 coins (−993 each)
• High alchemy ( 55 ) profit: −448,588 coins (−866 each)

Level 48-68: Steel platebodies

Smith steel platebodies from level 48 to 68 for 187.5 experience each.

• Starting experience: 83,037.5
• Experience required: 521,994.5
• Ending experience 605,030
• Steel bars required: 13,920 (9,491 bars if you are smelting the bars yourself - (1899 platebodies))
• Input cost: 7,252,320
• Profit: −4,704,960 coins (−1,690 each)
• High alchemy ( 55 ) profit: −4,209,408 coins (−1,512 each)

Level 68-88: Mithril platebodies

Smith mithril platebodies from levels 68 to 88 for 250 experience each. This is about 150,000 to 176,000 experience per hour. Depending on the efficiency of smithing experience received per hour, leveling smithing from level 68 to 88 takes smithing 15,123 mithril platebodies. Using Varrock West bank and anvil (25 secs when running and 30 secs when walking per round trip and crafting 5 items per trip), will take 25 in-game hours (based on walking only) with a standard deviation of plus or minus two hours (±2).

• Starting experience: 605,037.5
• Experience required: 3,780,750
• Ending experience: 4,385,787.5
• Mithril bars required: 75,615 (47,260 bars if you are smelting the bars yourself - (9452 platebodies))
• Input cost: 49,225,365
• Profit: −7,531,254 coins (−498 each)
• High alchemy ( 55 ) profit: −3,659,766 coins (−242 each)

Since smithing mithril platebodies is not profitable while smithing adamant platebodies is profitable, it is recommended to use dwarven stout once a minute when smithing at level 87 exactly, for its +1 smithing boost.

Level 88-98: Adamant platebodies

Smith adamant platebodies from levels 88 to 98 for 312.5 experience each. This is about 215,000 experience per hour with the use of energy potions. Smithing adamant platebodies from levels 88 to 98/99 may take upwards of 45/50 hours depending on efficiency and use of energy potions.

Note: The next section for rune platebodies is helpful and slightly faster experience per hour. However, most players will opt to continue smithing adamant platebodies all the way to level 99 even though rune platebodies are more experience per item. In short, smithing rune platebodies instead of adamant platebodies will incur a substantial financial loss even though it's slightly faster experience gained per hour.

• Starting experience: 4,385,787.5
• Experience required: 7,419,818.5
• Ending experience: 11,805,787
• Adamant bars required: 118,720 (74,200 bars if you are smelting the bars yourself - (14,840 platebodies))
• Input cost: 228,061,120
• Profit: −1,139,712 coins (−48 each)
• High alchemy ( 55 ) profit: 6,458,368 coins (272 each)

Level 98-99: Rune equipment

Starting at level 98, Smith rune platebodies for the fastest experience at level 98 for 375 experience each by drinking a dwarven stout for a +1 Smithing boost for one minute. Maintain energy with energy potions. However, rune platebodies can be extremely expensive despite offering the highest experience gained per hour for free-to-play Smithing training. You can trade the opportunity cost of time spent and break even with slight profits by continuing to smith adamant platebodies to level 99, even though adamant platebodies return a slightly lower rate of experience gained per hour. Admittedly, rune platebodies gain extra ~20% experience per hour in ideal circumstances, but will lose players millions invested in runite bars long-term.

It's possible to smith (and perform alchemy on) 3-bar runite equipment for decent profit at significantly lower experience rates from level 98 to level 99, but smithing adamant platebodies will provide superior experience gained per hour to 99, albeit yielding slimmer profit margins. After all, this is the efficient training section. It's better to optimise the overall cost benefit of experience per hour during training. One should not prioritise profit earnings and experience rates from a mutually exclusive perspective; balancing both is key to maintaining consistent progress to 99 Smithing.

Note: the only reason runite equipment remains relevant for training is by using high alchemy on 3-bar runite equipment (see below).

Rune platebody:

• Starting experience: 11,805,787.5
• Experience required: 1,228,643.5
• Runite bars required: 16,385 (9,835 bars if you are smelting the bars yourself - (1966 platebodies))
• Input cost: 204,271,795
• Profit: −78,084,356 coins (−23,828 each)
• High alchemy ( 55 ) profit: −76,819,434 coins (−23,442 each)

Other rune items:

• Runite bars required: 16,383
• Input cost: 204,246,861

• Rune platelegs
  • profit: 2,435,606 coins (446 each)
  • High alchemy ( 55 ) profit: 4,871,212 coins (892 each)

• Rune plateskirt
  • profit: 3,271,139 coins (599 each)
  • High alchemy ( 55 ) profit: 4,871,212 coins (892 each)

• Rune 2h sword
  • profit: 2,643,124 coins (484 each)
  • High alchemy ( 55 ) profit: 4,871,212 coins (892 each)

Alternative methods

Smithing and alching

When smithing adamant platebodies, rune 2h swords, rune plateskirts, or rune platelegs, you can cast High Alchemy on them to profit even more than selling them. Equip a staff of fire with nature runes, a hammer, an inventory space for coins and cast the spell while running back to the bank. Two platebodies can be alchemised when running and 3 when walking. By running to the anvil and alchemising all 5 on the walk back your stamina has time to regenerate (eliminating the need for energy potions) and taking ~38 seconds/trip. This is a click-intensive method, so alternatively after accumulating many of them, it is possible to AFK alchemise them instead. This will lower Smithing experience rates for more profit and some Magic experience. It is never profitable to buy steel bars, smith a steel platebody, and then cast High Level Alchemy on it. The same is true for mithril platebodies. However, high alching them can reduce the loss.

Alternatively, trade them to an alternate account to alchemise while continuing to smith on the main account to avoid lowering experience per hour.

• Adamant platebody profit with High Alchemy: 272
• Rune 2h sword profit with High Alchemy: 892
• Rune plateskirt profit with High Alchemy: 892
• Rune platelegs profit with High Alchemy: 892

Smelting and Crafting

Crafting gold jewelry (and silver jewelry) is an extremely profitable way to train crafting. If you're already making jewelry, you can use gold ore (or silver ore) as your input material instead of gold bar (or silver bar). While this is a significantly slower overall method of training smithing, the marginal time cost of smelting is simply the smelting itself (because you already have to make trips between the bank and furnace anyway). Your effective marginal smelting rate is 1200 bars an hour (one bar every 5 ticks); or potentially even more, as the increased time per bank trip allows run energy to recover sustainably.

Smelting While Crafting Viability Table

Item	Levels Required	Materials	Smithing Exp	Marginal Smithing Exp/Hr	Material Cost	Product Value	Profit/Loss
Unstrung symbol	20 16	1xSilver ore Holy mould (not consumed)	13.7	16,440	65	81	16
Tiara	20 23	1xSilver ore Tiara mould (not consumed)	13.7	16,440	65	103	38
Gold ring	40 5	1xGold ore Ring mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	157	148	−9
Gold necklace	40 6	1xGold ore Necklace mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	157	171	14
Gold amulet (u)	40 7	1xGold ore Amulet mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	157	158	1
Sapphire ring	40 20	1xGold ore , 1xSapphire Ring mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	393	435	42
Sapphire necklace	40 22	1xGold ore , 1xSapphire Necklace mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	393	456	63
Sapphire amulet (u)	40 24	1xGold ore , 1xSapphire Amulet mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	393	444	51
Emerald ring	40 27	1xGold ore , 1xEmerald Ring mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	595	641	46
Emerald necklace	40 29	1xGold ore , 1xEmerald Necklace mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	595	658	63
Emerald amulet (u)	40 31	1xGold ore , 1xEmerald Amulet mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	595	652	57
Ruby ring	40 34	1xGold ore , 1xRuby Ring mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	1,018	1,053	35
Ruby necklace	40 40	1xGold ore , 1xRuby Necklace mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	1,018	1,099	81
Ruby amulet (u)	40 50	1xGold ore , 1xRuby Amulet mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	1,018	1,106	88
Diamond ring	40 43	1xGold ore , 1xDiamond Ring mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	1,920	1,919	−1
Diamond necklace	40 56	1xGold ore , 1xDiamond Necklace mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	1,920	2,003	83
Diamond amulet (u)	40 70	1xGold ore , 1xDiamond Amulet mould (not consumed)	22.5	27,000	1,920	1,903	−17

Based on this marginal 1200 bars per (marginal) hour, we have the following experience and cost table:

Marginal Smelting Efficiency Table

Input Ore	Level Required	Output Bar	Experience	Bars/Hour	Exp/Hour	GP/Hour	GP/Exp
Silver ore	20	Silver bar	13.7	1200	16,440	50,400	2.51
Gold ore	40	Gold bar	22.5	1200	27,000	−49,200	-1.82

Superheat Item

Players with level 43 can cast superheat item, which can smelt a bar from anywhere at its normal ore cost, plus 1xnature rune and 4xfire rune (though the fire runes are not needed if a staff of fire is equipped). This saves time traveling between the furnace and bank. Also, it only has a 3 tick cast time (1.8 seconds) rather than the typical 5 ticks (3 seconds) it takes to smelt a bar in a furnace. As such, it can crank out a ton of bars per hour, earning pretty decent and experience along the way. As a bonus, it successfully smelts iron bar 100% of the time, without a ring of forging.

One disadvantage of superheat item is that it does not auto-cast if you have the supplies to make multiple bars; it must be cast on each ore in the inventory, making this method more click intensive.

While this method is still considerably slower at gaining experience than the Efficient Training mentioned above, it is considerably more cost effective and potentially a money-maker.

Bar		Levels Required	Experience Per Bar	Materials required	Input cost	GE Price	Profit Per Bar	Bars Per Bank	Banks Per Hour	Bars Per Hour	Experience Per Hour	Profit Per Hour	Coins Profit Per Exp
	Bronze bar	1 43	6.2 53	×1 ×1 ×1	161	137	−24	13	131	1,703	10,559 90,259	−40,872	-3.87
	Iron bar	15 43	12.5 53	×1 ×1	316	219	−97	27	68	1,836	22,950 97,308	−178,092	-7.76
	Silver bar	20 43	13.67 53	×1 ×1	172	107	−65	27	68	1,836	25,098 97,308	−119,340	-4.75
	Steel bar	30 43	17.5 53	×1 ×2 ×1	620	521	−99	9	178	1,602	28,035 84,906	−158,598	-5.66
	Gold bar	40 43	22.5 53	×1 ×1	264	116	−148	27	68	1,836	41,310 97,308	−271,728	-6.58
	Mithril bar	50 43	30 53	×1 ×4 ×1	849	651	−198	5	277	1,385	41,550 73,405	−274,230	-6.60
	Adamantite bar	70 43	37.5 53	×1 ×6 ×1	2,088	1,921	−167	3	383	1,149	43,088 60,897	−191,883	-4.45
	Runite bar	85 43	50 53	×1 ×8 ×1	12,348	12,467	119	3	383	1,149	57,450 60,897	136,731	2.38

This table assumes a staff of fire is equipped and each cycle takes ~4 seconds for banking.

AFK Methods

Smithing Bars

As stated at the start of this guide, if you are just looking to make money or train smithing as fast as possible, it is usually better to train smithing using the faster methods above and use the time saved on faster money makers. However, smelting bars can be a good method for players looking for an AFK method that also generates a profit. Be sure to check the GE before making any bars to make sure you will be making a profit instead of a loss. To use this method, it is recommended that you bank a large number of ores ahead of time: either by purchasing them from the GE, or mining them yourself if you don't have any gold or want the mining experience. Then head to the Edgeville Furnace as it is the closest furnace to a bank in f2p.

At the time of writing, the best option for this method that turns a profit is Silver bars because it only requires 1 ore per bar, giving players 01:25 of AFK time per inventory, and generates approximately 10k XP/hr. Iron bars are also a good option, generating higher profits at the cost of some experience rate; however, iron bars are only profitable if wearing a ring of forging which makes this method slightly less AFK compared to silver bars. At lower levels, Bronze bars are also viable; however, since they require 2 ores per bar, they will only have half the total AFK time.

Levels 14-99: Barronite Deposits

Barronite deposits can be mined occasionally from Barronite Rocks in the Camdozaal Mines after completing the quest Below Ice Mountain. Using them on the special Barronite Crusher anvil, near Ramarno, with a hammer yields various rewards, including barronite shards, and 30 Smithing experience. This method generates very slow smithing experience since the deposits are untradeable and must be mined before crushing. If you are also trying to AFK train mining in Camdozaal, crushing deposits can be a good way to generate some additional smithing experience, otherwise it is better to use any of the other methods in this guide.

If using this method, the best technique is to keep a hammer and the highest tier pickaxe you can in your inventory and mine the barronite rocks until your inventory is full. If you have a high enough Attack level, wielding your pickaxe will give you an extra inventory slot for a deposit, however it is better to carry a higher tier pickaxe in your inventory than wielding a lower tier one. Once your inventory is full of deposits, head to the Barronite Crusher and crush all of the deposits for the smithing experience. You can drop any items you get from the deposits, or bank them at the bank chest east of Ramarno; however, since barronite shards stack, it is easiest just to leave them in your inventory for the entire session and use them to purchase buffs from Ramarno. The mining and boost buffs will increase your experience rates, and the luck buff will increase the odds of finding rare ancient artefacts when crushing deposits.

Smelting Table

This table shows which bars are worth making from ores:

Bar		Level	Experience	Ore required	Input cost	GE Price	Profit
	Bronze bar	1	6.2	×1 ×1	54	137	83
	Iron bar	15	12.5	×1	209 216.19	219	-99.50 2.81
	Silver bar	20	13.67	×1	65	107	42
	Steel bar	30	17.5	×1 ×2	513	521	8
	Gold bar	40	22.5	×1	157	116	−41
	Mithril bar	50	30	×1 ×4	742	651	−91
	Adamantite bar	70	37.5	×1 ×6	1,981	1,921	−60
	Runite bar	85	50	×1 ×8	12,241	12,467	226