Metal shaping

Metal shaping in IC² is the process whereby raw metal inputs are transformed into a variety of output products.

Using shaped metal instead of bare ingots in crafting recipes allows for more depth in the process; however, it does require the appropriate tool(s) for the job.

Requirements

The first necessity for metal shaping is, naturally, metal. Dust (or other ore processing products) must be smelted into ingots (and depending on the recipe, possibly crafted into blocks as well) before being worked into other forms.

The second necessity is the appropriate tool for the desired product.

• Manual shaping:  Forge Hammer and  Cutter
• Machine shaping: mostly the  Metal Former, also the  Compressor and  Block Cutting Machine

Machine shaping allows for additional recipes not possible with manual tools.

Manual recipes

All the recipes using manual tools are shapeless, meaning they can also be crafted in the player's 2x2 inventory grid when a crafting table is not available. Copper is used for example purposes.

Plate	Item casing	Cable

Shaped products

Blank cells in the table indicate a recipe that does not exist^{[2.6.133-ex110]}, e.g. bronze ingots cannot be extruded into bronze cables and tin blocks cannot be extruded into tin shafts.

Mode or Machine	Input Item	Manual Tool Also?	Output (based on metal used)
			Iron	Gold	Copper	Tin	Lead	Bronze	Steel
Rolling	Ingot	Yes
	Plate	Yes	(x2)	(x2)	(x2)	(x2)	(x2)	(x2)	(x2)
Cutting	Plate	All but iron	(x4)	(x4)	(x2)	(x3)
	Item Casing	No	(x2)
Extruding	Ingot	No	(x4)	(x4)	(x3)	(x3)
	Plate	No
	Item Casing	No
	Block	No
Block Cutting Machine	Block	No	(x9)	(x9)	(x9)	(x9)	(x9)	(x9)	(x9)
Compressor	Plate (x9)	No

Note that extruding a copper ingot produces 3 cables, compared to 2 from cutting a copper plate (whether with a Cutter or in the Metal Former).