welding 260 Brass .025" with Tig problem.

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Inexperienced tig welder, trying to weld .025" brass (260 alloy). Making a sort of round drum, decorative, need to tack pieces of this thin brass together so I can fill seams with silver-solder.Using everlast 225, thoriated tungsten, lots of argon flow. I haven't seen this mentioned at all, but even with AC the only way I can get a puddle going (on fairly clean material) is to put down black flux, as if I was silver-soldering with oxyacetylene. WIthout flux, the arc just burns the top of the brass into a black oxide film (or so I think) and I never get a puddle, it just sort of turns crusty, while I crank on the pedal (say up to 80 amps), the electrode balls up and eventually the arc wanders around or goes out or it over heats and zinc fumes starts flying. Set to balanced AC wave. Its worse with DCEN.Starting an arc on flux-coated brass sucks for obvious reasons, flux doesnt conduct when its not molten, so I have to start the arc in a non-fluxed area, bring the arc into the welding area while it melts the flux.  Even then flux can really make things hard to work with, but if its a nice flat area, totally clean, I have put down beads of SiliBrz. I havent tried welding thicker brass ever, so either its me or something about thin brass. Anyone know if this is an expected phenomenon with thin brass? Or something else seem wrong with my setup?