Tantalum plates are made using cold working methods.

Tantalum cannot be processed using ordinary methods of processing general metals. The general starting process is forging and heat treatment, using two methods of hammering and stamping to produce flat billets or circular small and medium-sized billets.

Tantalum plates are almost always cold worked. Generally, starting from a tantalum ingot with a thickness of 15-30cm, cold forging results in a slab with a thickness of about 8-10m, and then starting from this slab, cold rolling can achieve a compression rate of over 95%. In commercial production, slabs are usually rolled into 0.63-1.2cm thick plates using two or four rolling mills, with a width of 51-102cm. Representative rolling is carried out at or near room temperature to prevent the formation of oxides on the surface. When hot rolling is required, due to recrystallization, the temperature rises to 1000 ℃ and intense oxidation reactions occur.

Almost all thick plates are annealed by heat treatment in vacuum. As there is no phase distortion, the speed of heating and cooling is not important. Further rolling is carried out using a regular rolling mill, usually using a 4-high rolling mill and a multi-high rolling mill. Due to the softness of tantalum, care should be taken to prevent scratches during processing and transportation.