Sheet metal channels with variable sections or local features have been widely used in automobile and construction industries, and novel forming techniques, such as flexible roll forming process, flexibly-reconfigurable roll forming process, Deakin’s flexible forming facility and chain-die forming recently have been developed to manufacture those channels. In this paper, the feasibility of chain-die forming technique to manufacture channels with variable sections are systematically investigated through experiment and finite element simulation by taking 6 types of channel products as demonstration, including three variable-width and three variable-depth profiles. The forming process of the channels shows a combination of roll forming and stamping, and this roll-stamp mode is greatly potential in manufacturing a wide variety of channels with variable cross-sections. The formability for roll-stamp forming variable-depth channels is evaluated through finite element simulation and forming limit diagram. The roll-stamp mode can be discomposed into roll forming longitudinally and stamping vertically, and can achieve a reduction in forming load by the maximum of 33.9% compared with the conventional stamping in forming the flange step product. The forming direction sensitivity of the variable-width feature is discussed from the aspect of web arch height development.