I had a jeweller melt down a piece of Spitfire in a failed attempt to make my wedding ring.

Despite trying many times, all he got when melting the material was various grades of crud, nothing much that you’d recognise as useable metal. Poor chap was sweating away, sawing bits off a piece of ‘junk’ while his other customers looked on bemused.

It seemed the alloy didn’t take well to being recycled in our case.