Newdegate Machinery Field Days: WA-made and designed Multi-Pulla wins Farm Inventor Award

Removing single fence posts has never been easier than with the new locally designed and manufactured Multi-Pulla.

The Chester Brown Industries innovation was awarded the Newdegate Machinery Field Days Farm Inventor Award on September 6, with company director Peter Chester on hand at the field days to demonstrate the uniquely simple contraption.

It’s the second time he has been awarded the prize after winning with his Post-Pulla a few years ago, which is now available via Nutrien Ag Solutions.

Mr Chester said the patent-pending Multi-Pulla was designed in his Port Kennedy factory, along with assistance from business partner Gavin Brown, and manufactured by Cadmine Engineering at Pinjarra.

“It’s the only post remover that you can have a coffee with while pulling out a post,” Mr Chester said.

Mr Chester said the Multi-Pulla had been designed to remove bulkhead pins on open grain bulk storage facilities in “a safe and efficient manner”, which CBH have snapped up — purchasing about 50 units to date.

The Multi-Pulla can also cater for different attachments in order to remove single pipes and star pickets from the ground.

It is powered by a typical construction hand drill.

“There’s no damage to the posts and you can remove a fully established fence as it reaches over the top wire to grab the post,” Mr Chester said.

“The work rate is more than one kilometre per hour to pull down a fence.”

It has been “engineered to manage a four-tonne lift”.

“It’s good for station owners to be able to clear fence lines,” he said.

“Anyone can use it.”

Because of the light weight and versatile nature of the Multi-Pulla it was well-suited to be used by “shires and parks”.

After the idea came to him, Mr Chester said it took him three hours to make a prototype which he trialled on a CBH site before it went into full engineering.

He said the Multi-Pulla was in the process of being patented in order to protect the design in Australia and the United States.

Originally from Cleary, Mr Chester farmed until he was about 30 and put his last crop in at about 1986.

He worked in earthmoving for about 20 years before building a charter boat and moving to the Pilbara to work in vessel management — driving between the Pilbara and Manus Island for survey work.

It was about 2019 when he put together the first sketches of the Post-Pulla and the Multi-Pulla was created this year.

“I just saw the opportunity to modify it to remove start pickets and wood posts,” he said.