This is from my archives (2013), I found this beautiful piece of video showing Zircaloy-4 being cut in a Lathe and firing up at the Polytechnic School of University of São Paulo, the place where I proudly did my master in metallurgy with focus in nuclear engineering and nuclear materials under Professor C.G. Schön!
Beautiful piece of metallurgy with a lot of history.
The great history of the development of Zirconium alloys can be found in this paper, written by the Zr-based alloys project leader: Admiral Hyman G. Rickover.
Materials at Extremes 