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According to the Wikipedia page on Vibranium,

The Wakandan isotope possesses the ability to absorb all vibrations in the vicinity as well as kinetic energy directed at it.

This, along with the ineffectiveness of projectiles against Captain America's shield and Black Panther's suit indicate that vibranium is virtually impossible to deform. In addition, it appears to be highly resistant to heat, as Ultron's vibranium body only begins to melt under the combined fire of Iron Man, Thor, and the Vision. Yet in Marvel Comics and the MCU, Vibranium is seen molded into very complex forms, including Ultron's body and and Black Panther's suit.

Black Panther Ultron

How is Vibranium, a metal that is unaffected by kinetic impact of any kind, and highly resilient to heat, molded into the complex shapes used by characters in Marvel?

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Obviously it can be shaped, because we've seen that it is (Shield, Ultron, and Black Panther suit).

I refer you to one of my previous answers:

Vibranium can be melted and shaped (just like Adamantium). However, like Adamantium, it has extremely high tensile strength. When solid, it is virtually impossible to dent, bend, crack, or break. This is why people call it "indestructible."

I think the point in your question is, given enough heat, the Vibranium did melt off of Ultron's body. This means you can melt it and let it cool into your desired shape.

If Vibranium was truly indestructible, then it would only be seen in its natural form as an ore, and would be unshapeable and probably unusable. Unless we happened to find a shield shaped piece of ore somewhere.

Adamantium is ferromagnetic, and therefore given enough force (say Magneto) it can be ripped apart. We don't know if this is true for Vibranium ( Is Magneto able to manipulate Vibranium? )

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    Note that you don't need to melt metals to shape them; you just want to make them more ductile/less brittle/what have you. It's perfectly possible that a material is virtually indestructible at room temperature, and very resistant to heating (say, high heat capacity and/or thermal conductivity), but soft and tough enough to be shaped when heated to a high temperature. A thermally-superconductive material would be very hard to heat up in the open, but easy in a simple oven. Iron alloys usually aren't cast - they are forged/machined while still solid; melting destroys the inner structure.
    – Luaan
    Commented Jun 20, 2017 at 16:28
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wow- if Thor truly used actual lightning, then vibranium IS pretty much impossible to mold. lightning on average is 6x hotter than the sun. however, this was a focused beam on a specific spot. I suppose that since vibranium absorbs kinetic energy, it might be able to absorb some of the heat, but to mold it sufficiently, you might as well throw it in the sun. How vibranium is molded may be a mystery. Perhaps vibranium must be molded with tremendous amounts of energy. This would explain the shield (Tesseract), Ultron (The entire electrical grid), and Black Panther (The Black Panther Spirit).

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  • Answers should be used to answer the question, which this does not. Once you've got a bit more rep, you'll be able to comment anywhere.
    – phantom42
    Commented May 15, 2016 at 19:36

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