# The forming of metal

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forming-of-metal/165696>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 1, 2003, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forming-of-metal/165696 "2003-04-01T13:43:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![shea241](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@shea241](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shea241)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forming-of-metal/165696/1 "2003-04-01T13:43:00Z")

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I was thinking that it might be benificial to have metal cool on a microscopic level so that it’s surface would look like one of two things. Either like fish scales or almost completly flat.

The ways I thought I could accomplish this would be but a magnet under the cooling metal. then it might form flat, when it comes to the microscopic sense anyway.

You could get it to form like fish scales if you just made a little breeze over the cooling metal.

I could be completly wrong about those methods but it might give you a better idea of what i’m thinking about.

What would be the benifits of something like this.

P.S. I can’t remember where when or what it was for but there was a perfect (or almost perfect) ball bearing made I think it might have been for a satilite. Maybe if someone rembers what i’m talking about they could mention it here.

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**Author:** ![Woeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Woeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Woeg)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forming-of-metal/165696/2 "2003-04-01T14:25:27Z")

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I don’t think the magnet idea would work. When metal is heated to the point of being malleable in a liquid form, it loses its attraction to magnets. By the time it was once again magnetic, it would have already taken its shape and the magnet would have no influence on it.

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**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forming-of-metal/165696/3 "2003-04-01T14:41:37Z")

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This paper, [Solidification Processing of Materials in Magnetic Fields](http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9802/Li/Li-9802.html) by B.Q. Li and published in _JOM: The Member Journal of  
The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society_ may be of interest.

> [@](#):
>
> The first attempt to deliberately apply magnetic fields to benefit solidification processing dates back to the early 1930s and today the use of magnetic fields has become a standard industrial practice in the solidification processing of electrically conducting fluids such as molten metals and semiconductors. In general, magnetic fields may be configured to contain the melt in air while solidifying, to generate melt convection deep in the solidifying liquid pool, and to damp out the deleterious turbulence flows and fluctuations associated with melt convection. All of these effects have been explored in both metals and semiconductor industries, and improvements in both process control and product quality have been impressive.

There is an extensive bibliography at the end of the article.