OSRS Smithing: Cannonballs vs Gold Bars at Edgeville 35-99

Game screenshots and facts are cited from the Old School RuneScape Wiki (strategy, equipment, drops, and related pages). Writing is original editorial, not a copy of the wiki article.

Smithing on a main account is rarely a single path. You might chase fast experience, steady profit, or a method you can run on a second screen while working. Edgeville furnace is one of the few places where both cannonballs and gold bars can be made within a few tiles of a bank, making it the fairest place to compare two very different approaches to the same skill.

This guide puts Edgeville cannonball smithing and Edgeville gold bar smelting side by side for levels 35–99. We will look at unlocks, attention required, profit tendencies, realistic time-to-goal, and when buying OSRS gold or a Smithing service is the honest time-saving shortcut.

Why Edgeville Furnace Is the Only Fair Test

Edgeville is not the best place for raw Smithing experience. Blast Furnace in Keldagrim blows it away for gold bars, and Giants’ Foundry outperforms both for engaged training. But Edgeville is the furnace most mains already have unlocked, it is steps from a bank, and it has a unique interaction with Varrock armour. Testing cannonballs and gold bars here removes travel time as a variable and lets you see the real difference in attention and profit.

For cannonballs, Edgeville is one of the most popular spots because the furnace is close to a bank and you can stand in one spot for long stretches. For gold bars, Edgeville is a fallback if you do not want to deal with Blast Furnace’s mechanics or the Keldagrim trip. The methods are both “furnace smelting,” but they ask very different things from you.

Requirements and Unlocks Before You Fire Up the Furnace

Both methods benefit from weight-reducing clothing and stamina potions, but Edgeville’s short bank distance means you will not need much run energy. The double ammo mould is a reward from Giants’ Foundry and effectively halves the number of furnace interactions needed for cannonballs.

Cannonballs at Edgeville: The Slow-Burn Profit Route

Making cannonballs is the definition of low-intensity smithing. You load up an inventory of steel bars, click the furnace with an ammo mould, and then wait while your character turns each bar into four cannonballs. With a double ammo mould, two bars become eight balls and the animation stretches even longer. This is a second-monitor method, not an active one.

How the profit actually works

Your margin is simple: 4 × current cannonball price minus the cost of one steel bar. If cannonballs sell for 170 coins each and steel bars cost 550 coins, you make 130 coins per bar before any mould or banking costs. If the spread flips, the method becomes a small loss. Because both steel bars and cannonballs are traded heavily, the spread changes often. Players should check live Grand Exchange prices before committing an hour.

Do not expect Varrock armour to help here. The armour’s double-smelt chance applies when smelting ores into bars, not when converting bars into cannonballs. If you are smelting your own steel bars at Edgeville, Varrock armour 1 will occasionally give you an extra steel bar, which does improve your cannonball margin indirectly.

Attention and AFKness

One inventory of 27 steel bars can take several minutes to convert, and you only need to click every time the inventory runs out. This is far more AFK than gold bars, which empty much faster. Cannonballs are ideal for mobile, remote work, or watching a show. The experience per bar is intentionally low, so do not expect this to be a fast route to 99. It is a profit-first method that happens to train Smithing.

Gold Bars at Edgeville: The Faster, Pricier XP Route

Smelting gold ore into gold bars at Edgeville is the accessible cousin of Blast Furnace gold. You do not need to pay the furnace fee, manage ice gloves, or run a belt. You simply withdraw gold ore, click the furnace, and bank the bars. The experience is far better than cannonballs, especially with goldsmith gauntlets, but the profit is usually negative.

Goldsmith gauntlets change the math completely

Without gauntlets, a gold bar gives 22.5 Smithing XP. With gauntlets, that jumps to 56.2 XP per ore. That is a 150% increase, which means fewer ores, fewer bank trips, and a lower total cost per XP. If you have a Smithing cape, it provides the same effect, freeing your glove slot. Family Crest is a medium quest with a 40 Smithing requirement, so by the time you can smelt gold, you should already have it done.

Profit and the Edgeville wildcard

Gold ore costs more than gold bars on most days, so you will usually lose money. Varrock armour 4 changes that slightly: a 10% chance to smelt an extra bar means for every 100 ores, you get 110 bars. That extra 10% can turn a marginal loss into a break-even or small profit, depending on the spread. Unlike cannonballs, this bonus does apply to gold bars at Edgeville.

If you have 43 Magic, you can cast Superheat Item on gold ore instead of using the furnace. This grants the same Smithing XP as normal smelting plus Magic XP, but it is more click-intensive and uses nature runes. It is not an Edgeville-specific method, but it is a way to train two skills at once if you are already at Edgeville.

Attention is moderate: each inventory empties in seconds, so you will click, bank, click, bank repeatedly. It is more active than cannonballs but far less demanding than tick manipulation. For many mains, this is the “I’ll watch a video but still glance at the screen” method.

Side-by-Side: XP, Profit, and Attention

Both methods are inferior to Blast Furnace for pure XP and to Giants’ Foundry for engagement and reward points. But if you are committed to Edgeville, the table above is the honest picture. Cannonballs win on AFK and profit potential; gold bars win on XP speed and simplicity.

Time-to-99 and Cost Realities

From level 35 to 99 requires 13,034,431 Smithing XP, minus whatever you already have. Cannonballs are one of the slowest legitimate training methods in the game, often delivering a fraction of the XP per hour of even basic platebody smithing. Many players who do cannonballs to 99 spread the grind over months, treating it as a passive income stream rather than a training goal.

Gold bars at Edgeville are faster, but Edgeville is not the speed champion. Blast Furnace gold can exceed several hundred thousand XP per hour with perfect play; Edgeville gold will be a small fraction of that. The exact hours depend on your banking speed, whether you have gauntlets, and whether you use staminas. The wiki’s Smithing calculator is the only reliable way to plug in current GE prices and your target level.

Cost-wise, gold bars are almost always more expensive per XP than cannonballs, because gold ore is rarely cheaper than gold bars. Cannonballs can be cost-neutral or profitable, but you pay with your time. If your goal is a max cape or quest requirements, the time saved by gold bars may be worth the gold sink.

Common Mistakes That Eat Your Profit or XP

• Forgetting Dwarf Cannon before buying steel bars. You cannot smelt cannonballs without the quest done. Complete it first, otherwise you are sitting on unusable bars.
• Using a normal ammo mould after unlocking the double ammo mould. The double mould doubles your output per interaction, cutting bank trips and increasing effective AFK time. If you have it, use it.
• Smelting gold without goldsmith gauntlets. You effectively throw away 60% of the XP per ore. Always have gauntlets or a Smithing cape equipped.
• Ignoring Varrock armour 4 for gold bars. That 10% extra bar chance is free profit and XP. If you have the tier 4 armour, wear it.
• Smelting gold ore without checking the ore/bar spread. The loss can be steep. If gold ore is 20% more expensive than bars, you are burning cash for mediocre XP.
• Using Edgeville for gold when Blast Furnace is available. If you can tolerate Blast Furnace’s mechanics, you will save dozens of hours and often spend less per XP because of the furnace’s efficiency.
• Instantly selling cannonballs at GE mid-price without checking margins. Cannonball demand is steady, but the spread between buy and sell can eat your profit. Use limit orders or sell in bulk over time.

Buying Gold or a Smithing Service: The Honest Shortcut

If you have done the math and concluded that 200 hours of Edgeville gold bars is not worth your time, you are not alone. Mains with disposable income sometimes buy OSRS gold to fund the most efficient methods, like Blast Furnace gold or even buying gold ore in bulk and paying the furnace fee. A Smithing service—where a trusted player trains your account for you—is another option, though it carries account-sharing risks.

The honest shortcut is not always about breaking rules. Using gold to afford better training methods is allowed if the gold is earned legitimately. Many players fund their Smithing grind by doing profitable PvM or flipping, then dump the profit into gold ore. If you would rather skip the moneymaking side, buying gold from a marketplace like GP Trillionaire is a decision only you can make after weighing the rules.

If you decide the time value is worth it, view live gold rates and compare the cost of supplies against the hours you would otherwise spend at Edgeville.

Practical Next Step

Start by deciding your priority: profit or XP. If you want profit and maximum AFK, complete Dwarf Cannon, grab an ammo mould, and test a small batch of steel bars at Edgeville. Watch the GE spread for a few days before committing a large buy order.

If you want faster levels and can stomach a loss, finish Family Crest for goldsmith gauntlets, get Varrock armour 4 if possible, and compare Edgeville gold to Blast Furnace before locking in. The wiki’s Pay-to-play Smithing training page has updated rates and quest shortcuts that can skip the early levels entirely.

Finally, if the grind still looks too long, use the wiki calculators to see exactly how much gold you would need to fund the faster methods, then decide whether buying that gold or a service is the honest shortcut for your account.

Sources

• Smithing - OSRS Wiki
• Cannonball - OSRS Wiki
• Pay-to-play Smithing training - OSRS Wiki
• Free-to-play Smithing training - OSRS Wiki