* Casting – molten metal is poured into a shaped mold. Variants of casting include sand casting, investment casting, also called the lost wax process, die casting, and continuous castings. Each of these forms has advantages for certain metals and applications considering factors like magnetism and corrosion.
* Forging – a red-hot billet is hammered into shape.
* Rolling – a billet is passed through successively narrower rollers to create a sheet.
* Extrusion – a hot and malleable metal is forced under pressure through a die, which shapes it before it cools.
* Machining – lathes, milling machines and drills cut the cold metal to shape.
* Sintering – a powdered metal is heated in a non-oxidizing environment after being compressed into a die.
* Fabrication – sheets of metal are cut with guillotines or gas cutters and bent and welded into structural shape.
* Laser cladding – metallic powder is blown through a movable laser beam (e.g. mounted on a NC 5-axis machine). The resulting melted metal reaches a substrate to form a melt pool. By moving the laser head, it is possible to stack the tracks and build up a three-dimensional piece.
* 3D printing – Sintering or melting amorphous powder metal in a 3D space to make any object to shape.
Cold-working processes, in which the product's shape is altered by rolling, fabrication or other processes, while the product is cold, can increase the strength of the product by a process called work hardening. Work hardening creates microscopic defects in the metal, which resist further changes of shape.