Question on "billet aluminum"

[munkee]

Im new to all of this, but ive been doing a hell of a lot of research in the past few day...i just have a few questions (im not sure if this is in the right area, but it does have to do w/ machining aluminum so...).

1. to my understanding, a "billet" is a chunk of metal...so if something is "billet aluminum", that means it was machined out of a solid chunk of aluminum right?

2. Im getting into metal working mostly for the automotive aspect. I was lookin at some "fuel rail extrusions" here. They are made out of 6063 T6 aluminum according to the shop. Now in refereance to my above question, although its not mentioned in their description, could these be considered "billet" rails?

3. is there a major difference between 6063 T6 aluminum and 6061 T6? I've found several different sources for these extrusions and they come in either material, i was just wondering which would be better. Also, i will be welding on some pieces to make mounts, and that material is 6061 T6, so would it be possible to weld it to 6063 aluminum?

Sorry if some of these are newb questions, but i am pretty new to this area, but im hoping to learn a lot. THnx

[Ken_Shea]

"Billet" is simply a bar of metal, steel, Aluminum, magnesium etc.

I looked up 6063-T6 and 6061-T6
The 6061 is stronger and a bit harder, I would think it would be a upgrade, and may even be a bit nicer to machine, up until your post I had not heard of 6063 at all.

I understand that 6061 welds nicely even in the T6 condition but I cannot verify that.

Here is a link to a lot of online information about different metals, very informative.
http://www.matweb.com/index.asp?ckck=1

Ken