Tig welding aluminum problems!

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Hey guys my name is Billy. I have been tig welding steel for a while and fixed some holes in a boat tower that was aluminum thats pretty much my experience with the material. Anyways my Coworker asked if i could help him fix his pipe on his dirt bike pipe of course i say yes so we go to ACE hardware it was 9pm all the metal supplies are closed to get a piece of aluminum stock to make a bracket. so he also wanted his ramp fix that his puts his bike in the trailer with which is also aluminum i try and weld it turns out pretty good lay some nice beads down. so then we move on to the pipe i tried and tried i could not get the ACE aluminum to weld to the pipe. is this type of aluminum not weldable? i have a 185 lincoln square wave.
Reply:maybe it had some sort of coating or was contaminated in some way.  Did you clean it first?
Reply:thats exactly what it felt like was there was a lot of surface tension. i think i am going to try some different aluminum. if anyone else has some insight please let me know!
Reply:burn it off w/the high freq or lightly grind it odd. its prbly got an anodizing on it
Reply:Tried it with lotsa cleaning and did the weld show black flakes?Probably heavy anodised. Grind it off.
Reply:i tried to grind it off and sand it it was a no go i think im going to try different aluminum
Reply:I can't remember the specific alloys, but some aren't overly weldable. Check into that maybe?
Reply:TRG thats what im thinking the problem is i went and picked up some 6061 and one other type ill give that a shot see what happens.
Reply:What do the black flakes mean?
Reply:I am not an experienced welder, but reading helps... and from what I've read aluminum is picky stuff... matching alloys and proper filler is key. Some types just won't weld together no matter what. To me, it sounds like that is what is happening to you. Let us know what you find out. 6061 is nice stuff. I've worked with that before. Best of luck!Black flakes mean the weld is contaminated.... you can't have aluminum "too" clean!
Reply:Originally Posted by BoomslangWhat do the black flakes mean?
Reply:Some of the pipes i have seen on some dirtbikes are stainless steel. I wouldnt think you could confuse the two but I figure it was worth mentioning.