[photon]

I talked with a few aluminum deck railing places and they say I could leave off the pickets if I liked and it would still work ok. I'd have little holes where the pickets would go on the underside of the rail but that wouldn't be visible. I could also move the railing to be on the other side then pickets actually wouldn't be a problem.

I also found a guy that would fabricate a steel pipe hand rail (everything just looks round and powder coated), waiting on a price for that. Would be super sturdy and durable but very plain looking.

And finally talking to a few of the iron wrought places that have nicer stuff, prices haven't been too bad so far but should have better prices next week.