Is it cast aluminum?

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Hi,I have an uncle who bought a tanning bed for his wife, when they trucked it home it was damaged during the trip. The part that was damaged was an arm extending from the stand, which would normally hold the lower half of the bed itself. The whole thing is pretty light, and the arm looks like a cast piece. The arm looks alot like aluminum, so I am thinking cast aluminum. I also thought it may also be magnesium, but shaving of the arm did not light on fire when i held a lighter to them. Now that the background has been laid out I have two questions1. any suggestions of what the material may be other than cast alum, or magnesium, and if so how would i correctly identify the material?2. what is a good process for welding cast aluminum?If it is alum, I had planned pre heating to somewhere between 3 and 600 F for 30 min. then go on tiging this piece (4043) after making a very clean joint with a rotary file where the fracture is. After that I was going to throw it back on the hotplate for another 30 min.Is there anything wrong with this procedure for alum? If it is another material what would be a good procedure for welding that?
Reply:may be white metal if its older ( the bastard metal ) lol
Reply:take some soldering flux and pour some on it. if it starts to bubble it will be magnesium, if not its aluminum. my moneys on the aluminum. be sure to use 4043 on it if its aluminum.only thing worse than an ugly woman is an ugly weld
Reply:oh yeah guess it could be that pot metal crap like kneedeep said. what a worthless metal hahaonly thing worse than an ugly woman is an ugly weld
Reply:only way to really tell without fancy equipemnt is to try welding it.  Try just washing over the edge first and see what happens.  If it sputters and give off alot of smoke and a purple glow it has some mag in it.  If theres white residue left over theres probably some zinc in it.  If its nice and clean and shiny its aluminum and you know what to do from there.Have we all gone mad?
Reply:Do the obvious. Check it with a magnet. That will tell you if it is ferrous or non-ferrous metal.AWS certified welding inspectorAWS certified welder
Reply:thanks guys, I welded it this morning. straight up cast alum. welded pretty well with a good cleaning