OSRS Smithing Guide 1-99 (2026): Blast Furnace, Foundry, F2P

Quick summary

• Quest skip: The Knight's Sword gives 12,725 XP and takes a fresh account to 29. Sleeping Giants (6,000) takes you to 33 and unlocks Giants' Foundry (OSRS Compass; XP from the OSRS Wiki).
• Fastest: gold bars at the Blast Furnace from 40 with goldsmith gauntlets and ice gloves: 380,000 XP/h (OSRS Wiki). That's about 34 hours from 40 to 99 by our arithmetic. It costs a lot.
• Cheaper and lower effort: Giants' Foundry from 15 is about 56-67 hours to 99 by our arithmetic, and the wiki shows profits at lower tiers.
• No gauntlets? Platebodies at an anvil (steel, then mithril, then adamant) are the wiki's recommended route. They're about 59 hours from 48 by our arithmetic.
• AFK: dart tips and steel cannonballs are slow but often profitable.
• 99 needs 13,034,431 XP. We label every hour estimate as our arithmetic.

This OSRS Smithing guide compares the routes that matter in 2026: the Blast Furnace for speed, Giants' Foundry for cost and effort, anvils when you lack gauntlets, and AFK options, plus a free-to-play ladder. XP rates come from the OSRS Wiki's Smithing training page and its Blast Furnace page. It covers Old School RuneScape only.

Pick your Smithing route to 99

Route	Levels	Methods	Time (our arithmetic)	Trade-off
Fastest	1-99	Quests to 33, anvil to 40, Blast Furnace gold with gauntlets	About 34 hours from 40	Expensive. Needs Family Crest, ice gloves and The Giant Dwarf started
Lower effort, cheaper	15-99	Giants' Foundry swords	About 56-67 hours	Needs Sleeping Giants. Moulds to unlock first
No gauntlets	48-99	Steel, mithril, then adamant platebodies at an anvil	About 59 hours	Usually a big loss before adamant
AFK, profit-leaning	34-99	Dart tips (Tourist Trap)	About 147 hours with the Smiths' uniform	Very slow
Most AFK	35-99	Steel cannonballs	Hundreds of hours	Very slow, usually a profit

Each time estimate is the XP needed for that bracket divided by the wiki's hourly rate for the method, with no breaks or banking mistakes, so expect real Smithing sessions to run longer.

Quests that give Smithing XP

All quests together give 190,982 Smithing XP (OSRS Wiki).

Quest	Smithing XP	Smithing requirement	Other requirements (wiki)
The Knight's Sword	12,725	None	Mining 10 (F2P)
Sleeping Giants	6,000	15	None
Elemental Workshop I	5,000	20	Mining 20, Crafting 20
Elemental Workshop II	7,500	30	Magic 20
The Giant Dwarf	2,500	None	Thieving 14, Crafting 12, Firemaking 16, Magic 33
Heroes' Quest	2,257	None	55 QP, Cooking 53, Fishing 53, Herblore 25, Mining 50
Recipe for Disaster (Pirate Pete)	1,000	None	Cooking 31
Scrambled!	5,000	35	—
Between a Rock...	5,000	50	Defence 30, Mining 40
Cabin Fever	7,000	50	Agility 42, Crafting 45, Ranged 40
Devious Minds	6,500	65	Runecraft 50, Fletching 50
Defender of Varrock	15,000	55	Hunter 52
Song of the Elves	40,000	70	70 in seven other skills
Dragon Slayer II	80,000	70	200 QP and more

Levels from quests (our arithmetic): Knight's Sword alone gets you to 29. Adding Sleeping Giants gets you to 33, then both Elemental Workshops to 38 and The Giant Dwarf to 39.

The big late rewards are worth planning around. Dragon Slayer II (80,000 XP) needs 70 Smithing and is the gate to the boss in the OSRS Vorkath guide, and The Blood Moon Rises needs 72 Smithing for the OSRS Maggot King guide.

Step 1: 1-33 with The Knight's Sword and Sleeping Giants

1. The Knight's Sword (F2P, Mining 10). Talk to the squire in the White Knights' Castle courtyard in Falador. You get 12,725 XP, taking you to 29.
2. Sleeping Giants (members, Smithing 15). It gives 6,000 XP, taking you to 33, and unlocks Giants' Foundry.
3. In free-to-play, smith iron warhammers from 29 to 33, then iron platebodies.

Smithing gear and smelting basics

• Smiths' Uniform. Four pieces from the Giants' Foundry reward shop, 15,000 Foundry reputation for the set. Each piece gives a 20% chance to make an anvil action one tick faster (100% with all four), and the full set raises Foundry XP per hour by about 20% on average (OSRS Wiki). Buy the cheaper gloves and boots first.
• Iron ore fails half the time at a normal furnace. A ring of forging, the Superheat Item spell or the Blast Furnace makes it 100% (OSRS Wiki).
• Coal bag. Carries extra coal so Blast Furnace trips for steel and higher bars need fewer bank visits.
• Ice gloves and goldsmith gauntlets are the two Blast Furnace essentials, covered in Step 3.

Step 2: 33-40 at an anvil

The wiki's full 1-40 anvil plan takes 572 bronze, 1,070 iron and 102 steel bars. After the quests you only need the last rows:

Levels	Item	Bars each	XP each	Wiki XP/h	Items (wiki)
1-5	Bronze dagger	1	12.5	13,900	32
5-9	Bronze scimitar	2	25	25,700	24
9-18	Bronze warhammer	3	37.5	36,200	69
18-24	Bronze platebody	5	62.5	52,100	57
24-33	Iron warhammer	3	75	72,300	150
33-39	Iron platebody	5	125	104,200	124
39-40	Steel warhammer	3	112.5	108,500	34

Use the anvil just south of the west Varrock bank, or the Trahaearn district anvil in Prifddinas after Song of the Elves (the closest to a bank, per the wiki). Make the highest item you can: 5-bar items give the most XP per hour for each metal.

Step 3: 40-99 Blast Furnace gold bars (fastest Smithing XP)

Unlock checklist

1. Goldsmith gauntlets from Family Crest. They raise XP per gold ore, from 164,000 to 380,000 XP/h in the wiki's table.
2. Ice gloves so you can grab bars straight from the dispenser. They drop from the Ice Queen under White Wolf Mountain. Reaching her needs 50 Mining (boostable) to clear the rockslide on the path; the gloves themselves have no level requirement, and you don't need to start Heroes' Quest (OSRS Wiki, Ice gloves and Ice Queen pages).
3. Start The Giant Dwarf to reach Keldagrim. Use the minigame teleport or the dwarven boatman east of Rellekka.
4. Budget two separate fees (OSRS Wiki, Blast Furnace page). On the official Blast Furnace worlds, every player pays 72,000 coins an hour into the coffer for the dwarf workers, at any Smithing level. Below 60 Smithing (not boostable), you also pay the Blast Furnace Foreman 2,500 coins per 10 minutes; a charged Ring of Charos halves that payment.
5. Bring stamina potions. The wiki's cost figures for this method assume 40 doses an hour and include the hourly coffer fee.

The loop (OSRS Wiki):

1. Wearing the gauntlets, put one inventory of gold ore on the belt to fill the dispenser first.
2. Withdraw gold ore at the bank chest and put it on the conveyor belt.
3. After you get the XP drop, switch to ice gloves and take the bars from the dispenser.
4. Bank the bars, withdraw ore, put the gauntlets back on and drink a stamina dose on the way.

Make sure there are no uncollected bars in the dispenser before the next load, or you only get part of the XP (wiki note). Use inventory locks or bank fillers so "deposit inventory" keeps your gloves.

Method	Wiki XP/h	Gold ore for 40-99 (wiki)	Hours 40-99 (our arithmetic)
Goldsmith gauntlets	380,000	231,267	About 34
No gauntlets	164,000	577,654	About 79
0-tick banking, with the Smithing cape (at 99)	About 420,000 (about 390,000 without the cape)	—	—
1 runner (paid)	530,000	—	—
3 runners (paid)	680,000	—	—

Runners trade you ore so you never bank. The wiki calls this very expensive, because you pay both the runners and the ore.

Giants' Foundry Smithing (15-99)

After Sleeping Giants, take a commission from Kovac, set the moulds, fill the crucible with two metals, then hammer, grind and polish the sword. The wiki recommends buying the improved moulds first, then the Smiths' Uniform.

Alloy	Level	Swords/h	Wiki XP/h	Reputation/h
Bronze/iron	15	16	97,920	1,264
Iron/steel	30	16	133,920	1,568
Steel/mithril	50	14	164,640	1,722
Mithril/adamant	70	12	198,000	1,836
Adamant/rune	85	11	253,110	2,068

The wiki's rates assume the best moulds (which need up to 81 Smithing) and good play. Our arithmetic: 15-99 takes about 67 hours with mithril/adamant from 70, or 56 hours with adamant/rune from 85 (much more expensive). The wiki calls mithril/adamant the best mix of XP and cost. You can also melt down unwanted equipment instead of bars.

Platebodies at an anvil (48-99)

The wiki recommends this only if you can't get goldsmith gauntlets.

Levels	Item	Wiki XP/h
48-68	Steel platebody	144,000
68-88	Mithril platebody	200,000
88-99	Adamant platebody	240,000 (300,000 at Prifddinas with the Smiths' Uniform)

That's about 59 hours from 48 to 99 by our arithmetic. Before adamant, the wiki lists a large loss per hour. Some high-alchemy clans buy platebodies in bulk.

3-bar rune items at 99 (or boosted from 95/98): rune platelegs, plateskirts and 2h swords give about 210,000 XP/h and can be profitable after alching (OSRS Wiki). Kovac's grog or dwarven stout give the boost.

AFK Smithing options

Dart tips and nails (from 4; dart tips need The Tourist Trap). The wiki assumes 1,300 bars an hour with the Smiths' Uniform, or 1,060 without.

Level	Bar	Wiki XP/h (uniform)	Wiki XP/h (no uniform)
4	Bronze	16,250	13,250
19	Iron	32,500	26,500
34	Steel	48,750	39,750
54	Mithril	65,000	53,000
74	Adamant	81,250	66,250
89	Rune	97,500	79,500

The wiki notes they usually break even or make a small profit at lower tiers. 34-99 is about 147 hours by our arithmetic.

Steel cannonballs (35+). 4 cannonballs per bar. The wiki gives 13,824 XP/h with the ammo mould, or 27,648 with the double ammo mould. At 87 Sailing, the ancient furnace in the Grimstone Dungeon halves the time per batch. It's very slow, but usually profitable.

Blast Furnace bars (15+). Smelting iron, steel, mithril, adamant or rune bars with a coal bag and ice gloves gives 75,000-108,000 XP/h, and the wiki lists them as money makers. The OSRS Mining guide covers ore sources, and the OSRS money-making guide puts bar-smelting profit next to other methods.

OSRS Smithing guide for free-to-play

Free-to-play has no Blast Furnace or Giants' Foundry, so it's quest, then platebodies at the anvil south of the Varrock west bank, the closest anvil to a bank in free-to-play (OSRS Wiki):

Levels	Item	Wiki XP/h
1-29	The Knight's Sword	12,725 XP once
29-33	Bronze platebodies	50,000
33-48	Iron platebodies	100,000
48-68	Steel platebodies	150,000
68-88	Mithril platebodies	200,000
88-99	Adamant platebodies	Up to 250,000

The wiki's prices show a loss on every tier before adamant, so most free-to-play players mine and smelt some of their own bars. Smelting iron at a normal furnace fails half the time unless you wear a ring of forging.

Ironman and returning players

Ironmen. You can't buy gold ore, so the wiki's Blast Furnace gold method mainly suits main accounts. Ironmen usually smelt the ore they mine (or get from Blast Mining and Motherlode), use Giants' Foundry to turn spare bars and dropped equipment into XP, and smith cannonballs for their own cannon. Do The Knight's Sword and Sleeping Giants early.

Returning players. Three things changed:

1. Giants' Foundry (Sleeping Giants) is the low-effort go-to and gives more XP from your metal than anvils.
2. The Smiths' Uniform speeds up anvil work.
3. At 87 Sailing, the Grimstone Dungeon ancient furnace makes cannonballs twice as fast. The OSRS Sailing guide covers the route to that level.

Smithing also links into the rest of the skill set; the Old School RuneScape hub collects the other guides and services.

Want a hand with this?

If you would rather not grind this part yourself, OSRS skill-leveling services are listed on FullBoosts. Read Jagex's Rules of Old School RuneScape before you buy any service from anyone, FullBoosts included — a marketplace listing isn't publisher permission.

FAQ

What is the fastest way to get 99 Smithing in OSRS? Gold bars at the Blast Furnace with goldsmith gauntlets, from 40. The wiki gives 380,000 XP/h, which is about 34 hours from 40 to 99 by our arithmetic.

Is Giants' Foundry worth it? Yes, if you want lower effort and lower cost. The wiki gives 98,000-253,000 XP/h depending on the alloy, which is about 56-67 hours from 15 to 99 by our arithmetic, and it is where you buy the Smiths' Uniform.

How do I get goldsmith gauntlets? Complete Family Crest. Without them, gold bars give much less XP (164,000 XP/h instead of 380,000 in the wiki's table).

How many gold ores do I need for 99 Smithing? The wiki lists 231,267 from 40 to 99 with goldsmith gauntlets, or 577,654 without them.

What's the most AFK Smithing method? Steel cannonballs, then dart tips. Both are slow but usually make a small profit.

Can you get 99 Smithing in free-to-play? Yes. Do The Knight's Sword, then platebodies at the Varrock anvil up to adamant at 88. It's slower than members' methods and loses money on most tiers, according to the wiki's prices.

Related guides

• OSRS Mining guide 1-99
• OSRS Vorkath guide
• OSRS Maggot King guide
• OSRS money-making guide
• OSRS Sailing guide 1-99
• OSRS Crafting guide 1-99