Is Smithing Worth Doing to Farm OSRS Gold?

What you need to know about Smithing and how to earn OSRS GP while training the skill.

You can certainly make OSRS GP by smithing in Old School RuneScape. Smithing can be profitable depending on the item you create and market conditions. For example, a few popular methods relate to smelting bars since you can smelt various types of ore into bars and then sell these bars to other players or on the Grand Exchange for a profit. The most profitable bars to smelt tend to be steel bars and runite bars, but this can vary based on the current market prices. High-level bars such as Runite bars also bring loads of profit.

Low-Level bars

If you want to smelt bars, even something like bronze bars which you can make with level 1 smithing, can bring you significant profits. However, in this case, the XP is poor. Low-level bars like Steel and iron bars can also bring you some profit. Remember to always use a ring of forging when smelting iron bars, especially as an ironman who can’t just use OSRS GP to buy the ores from the GE.

High-Level bars

It is usually only profitable to smelt high-level bars if you do this at the Blast Furnace. You’ll need higher-level smithing to gain access to the Blast Furnace and a few quests that require other skills to unlock Keldagrim (the dwarf city where the Blast Furnace is located). Still, even though you will need to deposit a gold fee to use this furnace in the first place, you will save loads of resources since you will only use half of the quantity of coal needed.

However, since one of the fastest ways to train Smithing is creating gold bars at the blast furnace using the gold-smithing gauntlets, you won’t be able to profit with these mid-level bars, but you’ll save a lot of time leveling up.

Darts

Smithing darts is also a great activity to obtain gold through Smithing. Even bronze darts will return significant profits. This activity is also afk-able since you can smith a full inventory of darts with a single click or tap. You’ll need a hammer in your inventory for this, or if you went to the free-to-play ruins of Camdozaal and obtained the Imcando hammer, you can wield that one and save on inventory space. However, rune and adamant darts will not bring you profits currently. One of the best places for this activity is the Varrock west bank, next to an anvil.

Cannonballs

Smithing cannonballs is always profitable though sometimes you will have bigger profits than other times, similar to how you might need to check the OSRS gold price multiple times before finding a good offer. This is because of the steel bars’ price and cannonballs on the Grand Exchange, which often vary, giving you bigger or smaller profits. One thing is sure: making cannonballs is a great way to profit with Smithing. 

One of the best places for this activity is the Edgeville furnace. Alternatively, if you unlocked the Shilo village, you’ll have a furnace close to a bank. To smith cannonballs, you only need an ammo mold and steel bars. However, suppose you want to be even more efficient and gain more GP per hour from this effortless activity. You should consider getting points at the Giants’ Foundry minigame and purchasing the untradeable 8 cannonballs mold. This will shorten the afk time while giving you more cannonballs per hour since you’ll smith them much faster.

Giants’ Foundry

Giants’ Foundry is the newest Smithing activity which is excellent if you’re an ironman since you can recycle some of the metal drops created from more than 2 bars, such as platebodies, and be rewarded coins, besides the minigame’s currency. You must complete the Sleeping Giant’s quest to unlock this minigame. Even though you won’t profit much from the minigame, it’s an excellent alternative for the high alchemy spell and will bring you decent Smithing XP and GP.

Smithing is Just One of the Many Ways to Farm Gold

Smithing is just one way to make money in OSRS. Many other methods exist, such as farming, slayer tasks, bossing, and more. Different methods suit different players, so you should experiment to determine what works best.