Aluminum buying guide: alloys, tempers, and shapes
Buy 6061-T6 unless your project says otherwise; it covers brackets, frames, and machined parts. Sheet you'll bend wants 5052-H32, anodized trim wants 6063-T5, and 3003 covers budget patch panels. We stock no 2024 or 7075. Here's the full decision, with tempers explained and June 2026 prices.
Which aluminum alloy should you buy?
6061-T6, unless your project hands you a reason to switch. It holds real load, machines cleanly, welds, and lives outside without paint, which is why it fills most of our rack. The exceptions worth knowing: sheet you'll bend wants 5052-H32, anodized trim wants 6063-T5, and 3003 covers budget sheet patches.
Those four alloys are the rack: 6061-T6 in most shapes, 6063-T5 in the extrusion profiles, 5052-H32 and 3003 in sheet. What you won't find here is 2024 or 7075. We don't stock aerospace alloys, and most drawings that name them don't truly need them: 6061-T6 carries nearly every hobby and shop job a 2024 or 7075 callout was protecting. If your spec is contractual, aerospace or otherwise, that's a sourcing request, and sourcing runs 2-21 days.
What do the tempers actually mean?
Temper is what happened to the metal after the alloy was set, and it moves strength as much as alloy choice does. T6 means heat treated and aged for full strength. T5 means aged straight off the extrusion press, a step softer. H32 means work hardened and stabilized for bending.
| Temper | In plain words | On our rack |
|---|---|---|
| T6 | Heat treated, quenched, and oven aged. Full strength; the temper you want in a load path | 6061, most shapes |
| T5 | Cooled from the extrusion press, then aged. A touch softer, with a smoother surface | 6063 profiles: angle, channel, and tube |
| H32 | Strain hardened by rolling, then stabilized. Strength without heat treatment, and it bends cleanly | 5052 sheet |
The practical read: T6 and T5 get their strength in an oven, H32 gets it from the rolling mill. Both kinds lose that strength wherever a torch or a weld bead gets the metal hot, so plan joints accordingly.
What shapes can you order cut to length?
Flat bar, round bar, square bar, hex bar, angle, channel, sheet, pipe, and square and rectangular tube. Every one prices per inch: type the length your cut list needs and the price shows in CAD before anything hits the cart, cut free to ±1/8″.
Which alloy lives in which shape follows the alloy's job. Bar shapes and most structural profiles are 6061-T6. The architectural profiles, angle, channel, and the tube family, also come in 6063-T5. Sheet is where 5052-H32 and 3003 live. Order each piece at its own length: pieces under 48″ ship at the best parcel rates, anything up to 96″ ships anywhere in Canada, and full sticks up to 21 ft move by quote request. New to ordering by the inch? Here's exactly how it works.
Should you build it from aluminum or steel?
Aluminum when the part gets lifted, towed, carried up a ladder, or bolted to something that floats. Steel when stiffness per dollar decides and the extra pounds cost you nothing. The number that settles it: aluminum weighs roughly a third what steel does, and everything else is detail.
The honest trade: aluminum is softer, it dents sooner, and a 6061 bracket usually needs more section than the steel one it replaces, so the piece sometimes costs more. What you get back is the missing weight and the missing paint can, since bare aluminum won't rust. A truck rack, a camper frame, a dock bracket: aluminum earns it. Workbench legs that never move? Steel's cheaper and stiffer, and there the weight is a feature.
What should you know before cutting, welding, or anodizing it?
Aluminum is the easy metal to work: it drills, saws, and machines with ordinary sharp tools, and that's half the reason to buy it. Two things catch people. Welding erases the temper near the joint, and anodizing quality depends on which alloy you picked.
The welding one first: the metal next to your bead drops well below its T6 numbers. Design welded joints with that in mind, bolt where the load is serious, and order pieces a touch long to trim after fit-up. The anodizing one: 6063 takes the cleanest, most even finish, which is why trim and railing profiles are extruded from it. 6061 anodizes fine for shop parts but can streak across big visible faces. The full side-by-side, strength numbers included, is in our 6061 vs 6063 guide.
What does aluminum cost as of June 2026?
Here's the rack by the piece: a 12″ length of 6061-T6 round bar runs $5.30 at 1/4″ diameter, $5.96 at 1/2″, and $13.75 at 1″, in CAD, cut included. Prices update daily with the metal market, so treat these as the June 2026 snapshot.
| 6061-T6 round bar, 12″ piece | Price (CAD, June 2026) |
|---|---|
| 1/4″ | $5.30 |
| 1/2″ | $5.96 |
| 1″ | $13.75 |
Two things to know about the shape of aluminum pricing. Short pieces aren't proportionally cheap, because the saw does the same work on a 4″ piece as on a 24″ one. And volume discounts run automatically, 5-15% as the order grows, no code and no asking. The order minimum is $40, and you can mix alloys and shapes to clear it. Today's numbers are on every product page in the aluminum collection: pick a shape and type your length in.
Got a drawing that calls for an alloy we didn't cover? Send a quote request and we'll source it for you.