Mining
In order for this process to begin, you'll need to start mining first. If you have never mined before, your best bet is to start mining bronze. Here's the steps to making a bronze bar.

1. First, buy a pick-axe from Bob's Axe Shop in Lumbridge, south of the castle. You could also buy an axe at the mining store within the Dwarven Mines.

2. Take your pick-axe and go to the nearest Copper and Tin rocks. If you bought your pick-axe in Lumbridge, the closest place would be the Mining Field West of Varrock. If you bought your pick-axe from the Mining Store, follow the mining cart tracks to the nearest set of rocks. Prospect the rocks to make sure that your mining the right stuff.

3. Mine about 5 tin and 5 copper. Then take the ores to the nearest furnace. Lumbridge is the nearest furnace from Varrock and Falador is the closest furnace from Dwarven Mines, which is southeast or if you follow the trail south past the King Scorpions, you should see a skinny hallway-like area with a set of stairs going up.

4. Bank the bars and do this again until you have a good amount of bars.

Some bars require 2 or more ores to make a bar, go to Bars in the smithing section for more info on that. In the mean time, look at this table for ores to see how much experience you get from certain ores and what level you need to mine it.

Level Tables for Ores
Ore Color Level Experience
Clay Light Brown 1 5
Copper Brown 1 17.5
Tin Light Gray 1 17.5
Iron Gray 15 35
Silver White 20 40
Coal Black 30 50
Gold Yellow 40 65
Mithril Dark Blue 55 80
Adamanite Green 70 95
Runite Cyan 85 125

When mining though, you will get fatigued. The better the ore, the higher the fatigue rate. However the higher mining level you are, the lesser the fatigue rate.

Certain locations have certain kinds of ore. Here is a list of mining fields and it's ores. Remember that these are all Free to Play locations since there is more F2Pers then P2Pers (Pay to Play).

1. West Varrock Mine Field - Copper, Tin, and Iron
2. Northeast Varrock Mine Field - Clay, Copper, Tin, Iron and Silver
3. North Al Kharid Mine Field - Copper, Tin, Iron, Silver, Coal, Gold, Mithril and Adamanite.
4. Dwarven Mines - Copper, Tin, Iron, Silver, Coal, Gold, Mithril and Adamanite.
5. Barbarian Village Mine Field - Coal and Tin
6. Edgeville Dungeon Mine - Copper, Tin, Iron, Silver, Coal, Gold, Mithril and Adamanite.
7. Lumbridge Swamps - Coal, Mithril, Adamanite
8. Karamja Island - Gold

The Mining Guild is a great place to get coal fast, since coal is required for A LOT of the smithing. You'll need level 60 mining to enter, and there's 2 ways to enter. One way is through the door in the Dwarven Mines, another way is down the ladder in the house next to the west bank in Falador. The Mining Guild contains 20 Coal Rocks (10 hard and 10 soft) and 3 Mithril Rocks (all soft). The guild is within the Dwarven mines but does not have any scorpions what so ever, so you don't have to worry about bringing a weapon and/or armour. Another thing great about the guild is that there's a bank and a bed right outside of the Guild. So you can bank your coal and rest much faster then anywhere else.

Smithing
Smithing is part 2 of your armour or weapon creation process. Now that you have bars, your going to need to smith them into something. Before you can officially start smithing your bars though, your going to need a hammer. The hammer will come in handy since that's what is used to hammer the bar into something to begin with. To get started, pull out your bars from the bank (if you don't have them in your inventory) and go to the nearest Anvil. Use the map in the Image Viewer to find the nearest Anvil. Once you reach the Anvil, click the bar and then click the anvil. You'll only be able to create Bronze Daggers if your level 1, but as your levels go up, so does your options. Sometimes what you smith may require more then one bar. For example, lets say you want to make Bronze Legs. You'll need 3 bronze bars to make it. The options will tell you how many bars you need if more then 1, just make sure to have a good amount of bars on hand when the levels get higher.

Bars are the major part of smithing, without them you can't smith at all. Here's the level tables for bars. This will tell you what level smithing you need to make the bar and what ores you'll need to smelt it.

Level Tables for Bars
Bar Level Experience Ores Needed
Bronze 1 12.5 1 Copper and 1 Tin
Iron 15 25 1 Iron
(50% Chance of failing)
Silver 20 13.5 1 Silver
Steel 30 37.5 1 Iron and 2 Coal
Gold 40 22,5 1 Gold
Mithril 50 50 1 Mithril and 4 Coal
Adamanite 70 67.5 1 Adamanite and 6 coal
Runite 85 75 1 Runite and 8 coal