A friend brought an aluminum hand truck to me to weld a broken bracket on it. I noticed it was all riveted or bolted. Someone had tried to weld it before with a mig gun, but that weld looked very, very porous and the weld had broken. I told him I didn't think it was a weldable alloy but he figured he had nothing to lose and asked me to try anyway.
After cleaning it, I tried using tig and it popped a lot and I could tell right away that it wasn't going to be a good weld. Is there any way to tell if an alloy is weldable or not without trying it? This looked like it was either cast or extruded. It had no welds on it for the actual construction purpose which led me to believe it was not a weldable alloy. Any thoughts or ideas?

After cleaning it, I tried using tig and it popped a lot and I could tell right away that it wasn't going to be a good weld. Is there any way to tell if an alloy is weldable or not without trying it? This looked like it was either cast or extruded. It had no welds on it for the actual construction purpose which led me to believe it was not a weldable alloy. Any thoughts or ideas?

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