To efficiently produce powdery or flaky metallic pieces (flake material) from molten metal and to drastically extend the service life of an using member(e.g. water cooling roll) against heat fatigue.

The apparatus is provided with a tundish 14 for holding the molten metal therein and continuously dropped from a nozzle 15 at the lower part thereof, a cylindrical cooling roll 16 arranged at the dropped position of the molten metal below the tundish and rotated in the same direction with the horizontal shaft as center and a reciprocative driving device 20 continuously reciprocating the cooling roll 16 or the nozzle in the axial line direction so that the dropped position of the molten metal goes almost over the whole length of the cooling roll 16. The cooling roll 16 is cooled at the temp. not higher than the solidified temp. of the molten metal and rotated at such sufficiently high speed that the solidified metal does not continue. In this way, the whole cooling roll 16 is heated at almost the same temp. and the local overheat is prevented.