Abstract: A sintered porous plaque battery plate comprises an elongated substrate and a sintered porous plaque on both major surfaces thereof. One longitudinal edge of the substrate has a region substantially free of porous plaque for welding a current collector thereto and the other opposed longitudinal edge of the substrate has a transversely tapered porous plaque region on both major surfaces of the plate adjacent and extending longitudinally of the opposed edge for preventing the plaque from chipping along the opposed edge. The method for forming such plates includes the steps of (1) coating a substrate with double and single plate width strips of powdered metal slurry, (2) forming a V-shaped groove longitudinally of each of said double width strips to define a tapered porous plaque region along one edge of each plate, and (3) severing the substrate into strips of plate each with a tapered edge region after the slurry has been sintered into a porous plate.