a method of directly fabricating metal parts with surface features only requires first preparing a mold of the desired metal part . a powder blend is poured into the mold , which includes a base metal , a lower melting temperature alloy of the base metal , and a polymer binder . the mold containing the powder blend is heated until the polymer binder melts and adheres the metal particles to form a green part . the green part is removed from the mold and placed in a crucible , and loose ceramic powder is packed around the part to support it . the supported green part is then heated as needed to vaporize the binder and consolidate the part via liquid phase sintering . once cool , the consolidated part can be machined to meet precise dimensional tolerances , if necessary .