A slide gate valve having a cementless joint between the valve and a metallurgical vessel containing molten metal is provided for facilitating the replacement of worn refractory components in the valve. The slide gate valve generally comprises a fixed refractory plate having a flow opening disposed generally in alignment with a tap opening of the metallurgical vessel, a movable refractory plate having at least one flow opening, an air cylinder for reciprocally moving the movable plate with respect to the fixed plate to control the overlap of the flow openings in order to modulate a flow of molten metal through the valve, a spring assembly for pressing the movable plate against the fixed plate to provide both static and dynamic seals between the plate, and a cementless joint between the flow tap of the metallurgical vessel and the fixed refractory plate formed by joint surfaces on the flow tap and the fixed plate which are compressively engageable to form a molten metal tight joint therebetween and compression means, which may be a spring arrangement, for sealingly compressing the mutually-engageable joint surfaces to create a joint without the need for extraneous adhesives or cement. In the method of the invention, the compression means of the joint preferably acts on the fixed plate when the plate is laterally slid away from the flow tap incident to a replacement operation to wipingly clean the joint surface of the flow tap of the metallurgical vessel.