Blast Furnace

osrsw:Blast Furnace

This article is about the blast furnace used in the minigame of the same name. For another blast furnace used to smelt Elemental ore, see Elemental Workshop (dungeon).

The official world for Blast Furnace is world 58 (P2P).

Death during this minigame is not safe. While this activity is not inherently dangerous, should you die by other means you will still lose your items and will need to reclaim them from Death or your grave.

Blast Furnace
Release date	23 August 2005 (Update)
Members	Yes
Location	Keldagrim
Participants	Unknown edit
Skills involved	Agility, Crafting, Strength, Firemaking, Smithing, Magic
Reward currency	N/A
In spotlight rotation	No
Hiscores	No
Tutorial	Unknown edit
Custodians	Unknown edit
Music unlocked	Have a Blast
Developers	Unknown edit
Infobox • Talk page

Full view of the Blast Furnace.

The Blast Furnace is a members-only minigame located in Keldagrim. Players use the furnace to smelt ore into bars; but to be successful, they must keep it working. The Blast Furnace requires half the amount of coal normally required for a furnace or Superheat Item spell.

Although the Blast Furnace does not involve combat, players may take damage while using the pump if the furnace's heat level rises to an extreme level, as indicated by the red zone on the furnace's temperature gauge. The amount of damage dealt depends on the player's Strength level.

The Blast Furnace is more efficient when used by a team as multiple players can assume different roles. However, it is possible for players to operate the Blast Furnace alone.

Goldsmithing gauntlets do provide bonus with smelting gold in the furnace.

This minigame is disabled for Ironman Mode players.

Travelling to the furnace

The Blast Furnace factory.

Location of the Blast Furnace

There are many ways to reach the Blast Furnace. It is located in south-east Keldagrim, slightly north of the train and cart stations. There are many ways to reach Keldagrim, including:

• Riding the mine carts for free.
  • Using the trapdoor just north-west of the Grand Exchange (you must have visited Keldagrim before you can use this shortcut).
  • From the passage under White Wolf Mountain (requires Fishing Contest).
• Riding the train from the first level of Dorgesh-Kaan.
• Walking to Keldagrim's entrance from Rellekka or Seers' Village.
  • Fairy ring code DKS. This will transport players to the north-east of the Keldagrim entrance.
• Using the Keldagrim teleport on the Luck of the dwarves ring. This will teleport players to the west side of Keldagrim, south-east of the bank.

Skills requirements

The following skill levels are required to operate the Blast Furnace. If players are working as a team, however, these level requirements may be met by the entire team, not for each individual.

• Smithing level of 60.
  • Players with a Smithing level less than 60 may pay a fee of 2,500 coins in order to use the furnace for 10 minutes. Wearing a Ring of charos (a) halves the payment. Players entering this way can use the furnace multiple times in 10 minutes. If a player logs out, however, their time will expire.
  • Level 60 is also required to use the anvils in the north-west corner of the room. However, it is possible to use temporary boosts to gain access to the forging area, but not to skip paying the Blast Furnace usage fee.
• 30 for fuelling up the stove.
• 30 for pumping the stove.
• 30 for pedalling the conveyor belt.
• 30 for fixing the broken pipes.

What to bring

You don't have to bring all these items because there's a Bank chest nearby.

The following items are suggested in order to effectively use the Blast Furnace.

Ore

Ore is essential in order to train Smithing at the Blast Furnace. Ore may be obtained by one of several methods:

• Using the bank chest near the Blast Furnace Foreman to bring inventories of ore directly to the conveyor belt.
• Bringing all ore in note form to Ordan. He will then unnote ores (up to and including Mithril) by using the notes on him, for a small price (see below for costs).
• Buying ore from Ordan, who keeps his own stocks.

A coal bag from Dungeoneering will store coal, allowing ores to fill the rest of the inventory other than ores. A beast of burden (such as a Spirit terrorbird) may also be of good use.

Suggested equipment

While the basic tools essential to playing the minigame respawn near the Blast Furnace, players may wish to use some their own items to increase productivity or to help with various other functions.

Item	Reason
1,000 x  Coins	Unnoting ores, purchasing ores, or the entrance fee (if under 60 Smithing)
Nature runes and  Fire runes	Used for the High Level Alchemy spell. A Staff of fire can also be used.
Ring of charos (a)	Lowers the fee to use the furnace (if under 60 Smithing).

Operating the Blast Furnace

The process for operating the Blast Furnace is as follows:

1. Place ore and coal on the Conveyor Belt.
2. Turn the Conveyor Belt by operating the Pedals.
3. Repair cogs or drive belt (if broken).
4. Collect coke and use the spadeful of coke to refuel the Stove.
5. Operate the Pump.
6. Repair pipes (if broken).
7. Cool down smelted bars with a bucket of water from the sink.
8. Collect the bars from the bar dispenser.

It is also helpful, when playing with a large group, to add coal to the conveyor belt whenever possible; this will remove the need to unnote and smith. The player can then have a rhythm of smelting and smithing, which can speed up the process. Also, you can add the ore and coal to the furnace when your bars are ready to collect, so while you are smithing them, the others will be being smelted by other players.

Conveyor belt

A player puts ore on the belt.

A player pedals to work the conveyor belt.

First of all, players have to put their raw materials (ore and coal) on the conveyor belt. Once the materials are placed on the belt, they cannot be taken by other players. To activate the conveyor belt, a player must pedal the gearbox. Pedalling drains run energy for those with lower Agility levels.

The furnace is limited to a maximum of 229 raw materials per player, but only enough to make 28 bars. Usually this means 201 coal and 28 ore. Players smithing Bronze are limited to 28 copper and 28 tin. If a player places the ore first, the coal capacity decreases by the number of ore. For example, placing 5 mithril ore decreases the coal maximum capacity to 219 (229 - 10), since mithril ore requires 2 coal per bar. Players can see the amount of coal in the furnace by checking the dispenser. However, there is no way to know how much metal ore is in the furnace until the capacity is reached.

Note that a player cannot add ore if there are 28 bars of the same type in the bar dispenser. Also, if you are smelting steel and on a team world (like world 58), add your coal to the conveyor first or you will end up smelting iron bars!

The gears driving the drive belt may break while pedalling. While the gears are broken, the temperature of the furnace stays at the minimum and no bars can be smelted. A player must fix them with a hammer (from the tool belt, or respawn on the north-east table) in order to get the belt running again.

Furnace stove

A player loads coke into the stove.

After putting in the ore, the next step is to load coal into the stove with a spade (respawn by the coal pile; the spade on the tool belt cannot be used in this instance). To load coke, click the pile of coke (changing the spade to Spadeful of coke) and then click the stove.

The colour of the grate indicates the temperature of the stove:

• - Cold
• - Warm
• - Hot

Heat pump

A player pumps hot air.

When the stove temperature is hot, it is time to pump air into the furnace. Click on the pump to start pumping. Players must continue to pump until either the bars are smelted, or a pipe or the drive belt breaks.

Caution: Be careful not to pump when the temperature gets into the red zone as indicated on the temperature gauge. If a player continues to pump, they will take damage equal to about 20% of their current life points (for example, a player with 700 life points would take 140 damage). Therefore, the player should either have another player warn them when the gauge approaches the red region, or listen for the production of bars, as discussed below.

Temperature gauge

Reading the temperature gauge.

A pipe has broken.

The Blast Furnace will only produce bars while the needle of the temperature gauge is in the green area of the dial. A player watching the gauge may tell the pumper to start pumping when the needle is in the white and stop pumping when it approaches red (to prevent the pumper from taking damage). This is not really necessary, however, since the bars are produced as soon as the needle reaches green; upon seeing and hearing this, the pumper can stop pumping.

The gauge will also indicate when the stove needs more coke or if a part has broken.

Bar dispenser

Once the bars are melted, they pour into the bar dispenser and the mould in the centre turns an orange colour. The bottom right corner of the dispenser's display shows either how much coal is needed in the furnace or how much coal is already there. Players have to cool the bars down with a bucket of water (respawn near the sink) before obtaining the bars. A player can smelt up to 28 bars of one type at once and must remove bars in order to add more ore, or else they will receive the message, "You should check and see if the other bars have smelted before adding more."

Bar dispenser

Broken parts

While the Blast Furnace is in use, the drive belt and one of two sections of pipe will occasionally break. These can be fixed with a hammer, which can be used from the tool belt; otherwise, one respawns on the north-east table. 50 Crafting experience is awarded for each fix, and this does work with bonus experience.

A pipe in need of repair

Experience

Full Smithing experience is gained from smelting the bars. There is an anvil nearby to smith any items you wish for additional experience. Magic XP can be gained should one choose to alchemise their produced items.

Additionally, maintaining the Blast Furnace also offers experience in other skills. However, this gives trivial experience:

Skill	Action	Experience
Agility	Pedal the conveyor belt	2 xp/second
Crafting	Repair the pipes or drive belt	50 xp
Strength	Pumping	4 xp/second
Firemaking	Shovel coal into the stove	5 xp/ load
Smithing	Help use the Blast Furnace	1 xp/bar loaded (by any other person)
Magic	High Alchemy (optional)	65 xp

Operation strategy

Single player method

What to check when solo smelting

A single player is able to manage the furnace by themselves if they use this strategy:

1. Collect the materials using whatever method.
2. Place them on the conveyor belt (left-click on the belt to put them all on at once) with the correct ratio of ores (1:1 iron to coal, 1:2 mithril to coal, 1:3 adamantite to coal, and/or 1:4 runite to coal) for up to 28 bars. The player may place more coal than needed.
3. Pedal the conveyor belt so that the ore goes into the furnace. Repair conveyor belt if it jams.
4. Collect the hammer (if not on tool belt) and spade from their respawn places in the room. The hammer spawn point is on a table near the north-east corner and the spade spawn point is on the floor next to the refuel area.
5. Now fuel up the machine. There is no point only putting in a little fuel as it will run out when it is needed, so it is important to put enough in. Repeatedly click on "collect coke" and then "Refuel Stove" until the colour of the three lines on top of the stove is red. If done quickly it is also possible to use as few as eight repetitions as long as the pipes do not break too much.
6. Check that there are no broken pipes. If there are click on them and you will repair them with your hammer.
7. Start pumping. There is no need to check the gauge while pumping. Position your view so that you can see the bar dispenser, the pipes, and the stove top, as shown on the upper image. This is easily done in full-screen HD.
8. Repair any pipes that break while pumping. Sometimes, many will break and it will take a while; other times, none will break.
9. When the centre of the bar dispenser turns an orange colour (and if the sound effects are on, one will hear a popping noise), stop pumping; otherwise, you will be hurt by a blast of hot air.
10. Collect the bucket from the spawn point near the sink and fill it with water; then use the bucket on the bar dispenser.
11. Collect the bars.

• It should be noted if a player heats up the stove to the red colour plus one spadeful of coke, a player can often pump and repair the Blast Furnace without having to check the pressure gauge or refill the stove until done with his or her load of ore.

The player will receive all of miscellaneous non-Smithing XP in addition to the usual full Smithing XP for smelting the bars. This is the only advantage of using this method. Unfortunately, even the official Blast Furnace world (world 58) tends to be devoid of players here during much of the day, leaving many players with no choice but to work the furnace alone.

Under 60 strategy

This method is not as good as the normal Blast Furnace, but still works great. It helps to be on world 58 in case other players are there.
Items needed: Coins for paying to use the furnace and ores (mithril, for this example) for making bars.

• Pay the foreman 2500gp to use the furnace (1250gp with ring of charos(a)).
• Put 56 coal on to the conveyor belt.
• Put 28 mithril on the conveyor belt
• Work the Blast Furnace.
• Bank bars at the nearby chest when finished.
• Repeat.

If you want to smith the bars as you make them:
Additional item needed: Varrock teleports

• When the bars are done, collect them and use a Varrock teleport.
• Run to the anvils west of the teleport, in the structure south of the bank.
• Smith the item you want.
• Run to the Grand Exchange and quick use the trap door near the north-west corner to ride a mine cart back to Keldagrim near the Blast Furnace.
• Repeat.

Cost analysis

Cost of unnoting ores

When deciding strategies for the Blast Furnace, it is important to understand the true cost of unnoting the ores (made less relevant with the 25 April 2016 patch that added a bank chest to the area) and manufacturing the bars:

Ores
Ore	Unnoting Cost	Grand Exchange Cost	Total Ore Cost
Copper ore	10	80	90
Tin ore	10	39	49
Iron ore	8.5 (rounded down)	185	193
Silver ore	37	47	84
Coal	22.5 (rounded down)	130	152
Gold ore	75	177	252
Mithril ore	81	280	361
Adamantite ore	Doesn't un-note	1,464	1,464
Runite ore	Doesn't un-note	12,082	12,082

In a hidden update, the 'unnoting' was made quicker with having the 4th option remember what your 'unnote x' was (and creating a 5th option of 'unnote x'). The conversation with Ordan was also taken away leaving with the player with 2 things to do: pick the amount and confirm. This makes it as fast as the old method of selling ore to him and rebuying when over 100 ores were in stock.

Producing bars

Players will generally profit by turning ores and coal into bars. This calculator gives details on the profit obtained from making each type of bar.

High Alchemy profit/loss

This next table evaluates the profitability for casting the high alchemy magic spell on plate bodies of the various ore types.

High Alchemy Profit
Platebody	GE Sale Price (comparison)	GE Ore Costs	High Alch Profit/Loss (421gp nat.)	Net Gain/Loss per XP
Bronze platebody	687	695	-1020	-8.16
Iron platebody	1,765	965	-1050	-5.6
Steel platebody	2,069	1,725	-946	-3.44
Mithril platebody	2,489	3,325	-626	-1.138
Adamant platebody	9,025	9,490	73	0.117

Arrowtip profit/loss

Each bar will produce 15 arrowtips, and the price below reflects each group of 15 arrowtips made from one bar. As these are stackable, there is no need for Nature runes, and these can be sold on the Grand Exchange or used with Fletching skill to create arrows. The prices and the profit is on a per-bar basis and not per arrowtip.

Arrowtips Profit
Arrowtips	Grand Exchange Price	Ore Costs	Unnote Costs	Smithing (+Unnote) profit/loss	Smithing profit/loss
Bronze arrowheads	210	119	20	71	91
Iron arrowheads	255	185	8	62	70
Steel arrowheads	705	315	30	360	390
Mithril arrowheads	1260	540	125	595	720
Adamant arrowheads	2,640	1,854	-	-	786
Rune arrowheads	2,910	12,602	-	-	-9692

Crossbow bolt cost

Crossbow bolts are another very popular fletching item, as they are commonly used while ranging. The prices and the profit is on a per-bar basis and not per bolt, as 10 bolts can be smithed per bar.

Crossbow Bolts Profit
Unfinished bolts	Grand Exchange Price	Ore Costs	Unnote Costs	Smithing (+Unnote) profit/loss	Smithing profit/loss
Bronze bolts (unf)	140	119	20	1	21
Iron bolts (unf)	140	185	8	-53	-45
Silver bolts (unf)	70	47	37	-14	23
Steel bolts (unf)	520	315	30	175	205
Mithril bolts (unf)	1210	540	125	545	670
Adamant bolts (unf)	1,940	1,854	-	-	86
Runite bolts (unf)	11,120	12,602	-	-	-1482

Trivia

• Before the April 25 2016 update, there was no bank chest in the Blast Furnace area. Players had to run to and from the bank, relying upon Ordan to unnote their ores for a fee. Now some players might not find the cost of unnoting ores worth saving the minor annoyance of running between the bank and the conveyor belt a few times per load.
• On the 9 November 2009 update, the gate leading to the anvils was removed, and appropriate changes were made to the anvils so that only players with 60+ Smithing can use them.
• After the Grand Exchange update, Ordan was first selling ore at the maximum market price, which was much more expensive than previously. After complaints from players over this, he once again sold them at the normal market price. Ever since this update, Ordan's ore prices have been the same whatever the number of ores in stock. Since the update of 2 September 2009 the prices sank, and they are not fixed anymore, depending on stock amount.
  • With the reintroduction of personalized shops, Ordan sells the ores at a lower price. So if you trade your ore to him and buyback, the cost involved is almost same as having him unnote them. Ex. Mithril unnotes at 81 and if you sell it to him noted, he pays you 82 gold for each. Then you buy it back again from him, he sells it at 162. So you again lost only 80, since he paid 82 for it already. This will save a huge amount of time avoiding the 'unnote' option (Note: You must make sure his stock is initially over 100 and keep it over 100 while there). This is no longer necessary due to the speeding up of the Unnote-X option and the removal of its dialogue.
• Contrary to popular belief, the temperature of the stove does not affect the chance of a pipe becoming broken.
• The conveyor belt that moves the ores into the furnace has 3 separate sections turning independently. However, only the outer two are connected to the pedal mechanism; the inner one turns by itself.
• In the Q&A on 11 February 2010, Paul Gower stated that the Blast Furnace was created during an attempt to make a Smithing Guild.
• If you use the orb of oculus in the Java version and look north-west, you see the Gravedigger random event. Looking north-east, you see the old Candlelight random event. Looking directly east or west, you can see segments of Eagles' Peak from during the quest.