Capabilities  /  Aluminum Rail at Volume

Industrial Guardrail · Stairs · Embeds
Clear Anodized · AWS D1.2

Aluminum Rail
at Volume

7,310 linear feet across two water treatment plants
Supply only, 800 miles out, no truck coming back
Utah · Nevada · Arizona · Washington · Oregon

Aluminum guardrail along an elevated grating walkway above a pressurized pipe gallery at a water treatment plant
Scope
Guardrail · Stairs
Embeds · Platforms
Finish
Clear anodized
Mill · Painted
Code
AWS D1.2 Aluminum
Qualified WPSs on file
Two Plants
7,310 Linear Feet
2023 – present
Shipped
40,457 lbs
on Willamette alone
Delivery
Supply only,
crated and sequenced

Supply only is not an easier job.
It is a job with no second chance.

Industrial aluminum guardrail, stairs, platforms and embeds for water infrastructure — 7,310 linear feet across two treatment plants for the same steel fabricator, the second one 63% larger than the first. Clear anodized, welded to AWS D1.2, crated in Logan and delivered to sites in Oregon and Arizona. We do not install this work. Everything has to be right when the crate opens.

What volume actually tests

Thousands of feet of rail is not a welding problem. Any competent shop can make one good panel. The test is whether panel 600 matches panel 6, whether it arrives on the week the crew needs that elevation, and whether it fits a structure poured by somebody else while you were building.

On a supply-only package that test has no safety net. There is no crew of ours standing on site to persuade a part into place, and the nearest correction is a truck and several days away. Everything that would normally be solved in the field has to be solved before the crate is closed.

That is the whole discipline of this work, and it is why a steel fabricator who watched us carry the first plant sent us the bigger second one.

A yard full of finished aluminum rail and stair assemblies staged on timbers outside the shop

01 — The finish

A finish you don't own
is a schedule you don't control

Clear anodizing is not a coating applied over the metal. It is a conversion of the surface itself, done in tanks, by somebody else — which means a critical step in a package this size happens in a building we do not run.

Willamette was our first large-scale anodized package, and the finish was the hardest part of it. We trialed several anodizers before one of them held the consistency the job needed across thousands of feet of material.

That is a real part of the capability, and none of it is visible in a photograph. Knowing which finisher can actually hold a line across a package of this size, and having already proven it on two plants, is the difference between a quoted lead time and a delivered one.

Close view of a welded aluminum stair stringer before finishing
Welded aluminum stringer, before finish.

02 — The delivery

Crated in Logan, opened 800 miles away

Both plants were supply only. We fabricated, finished, crated and shipped — and someone else's crew opened the crate and hung it.

So every crate is built to describe itself. Each rail is individually tagged, and every crate ships with a bill of lading listing exactly what is inside it. The crew opening it should never have to guess what they just received.

The crates are a fabricated product in their own right. We designed and built custom crates for these packages for one reason: no metal on metal. Every rail is held isolated from the ones beside it, so nothing arrives rubbed, scuffed or dented after thousands of miles of highway.

That matters more here than on most jobs. An anodized surface cannot be touched up, so a shipping scar is not a repair, it is a remake — and a remake is six weeks and a phone call nobody wants.

Finished aluminum guardrail panels held apart from each other inside a purpose-built timber shipping crate
Custom crates. Every rail isolated, nothing touching metal.

03 — The duty

Every foot of it is fall protection

A water treatment plant is a building made of edges. Open basins, elevated grating walkways, pressurized pipe galleries, stair towers between levels. There is almost no rail in these plants that is decorative.

What falls on the other side of it is not a floor. That changes how a package gets checked — posts, base plates, anchor patterns and splices are the parts an inspector looks at, and they are the parts we inspect and document before anything ships.

Aluminum is specified here for a reason: it does not rust in a wet, chemically aggressive environment, and it stays serviceable for decades with no coating to maintain. Getting it right once is the entire value proposition of the material.

Aluminum guardrail and grating walkway running above process piping in late daylight
Not a floor on the other side of it.
A finished aluminum stair with guardrail staged outside the shop
Aluminum stair, complete
A flatbed trailer loaded with crated aluminum rail assemblies
Loaded out of Logan
Aluminum guardrail around concrete basins at a water treatment plant at sunset
In service, at the edge
7,310 LF
Across two treatment plants
63%
More rail on the repeat order
40,457 lbs
Non-ferrous shipped, Willamette
D1.2
AWS aluminum, WPSs on file

Industrial aluminum package, shipping out of state?

Water, wastewater, power, process. Send drawings, the spec section and a delivery schedule — and tell us whether we are installing or crating, because they are two different jobs.

Request a Bid Quality & Safety

Aluminum at volume

2023–2025 · Sherwood, OR

Willamette Water Treatment Plant

2,780 LF of clear-anodized aluminum guardrail, plus aluminum stairs, embeds and 316 stainless structural. 40,457 lbs shipped. Our first large-scale anodized package.
2025–2026 · Gilbert, AZ

Gilbert Northwest Water Treatment Plant

4,530 LF — 63% more rail than Willamette, for the same steel fabricator. In progress.
2022–2023 · Helena, MT

Helena Montana Temple

The other end of the aluminum range: 6061 in a high-end automotive paint finish, laser-cut layered transoms and a cupola built as two welded assemblies.