An industrial designer (Ian) and a patent attorney (Fraser) started yarning about what they had been doing over the weekend. Fraser had a small hobby farm and had been repairing holes made in fences by wild pigs and kangaroos. Ian was intrigued to hear that something as straightforward as a fence could have so many problems.

And so a mutual cooperation aimed at improving Australia’s fences was born.

The initial problem that Wireman tried to address was joining barbed wire without the use of a device that needed to be left in the fence.

It was a big challenge, and the construction of a number of prototypes only showed how difficult a problem it was to solve. Non the less, while watching contractors trying to remove the barbs from barbed wire (to make it easier to join), Ian saw a problem that could be solved, and the DeBarber came into existence.

In the process of showing the DeBarber to people and taking it to field days, many shared their views (good and bad) about the product and we got a much better understanding of the problems people were having trying to put up fences. The biggest of which was the wire tensioning tools that were being used, and the need to try to stop animals going over or under fences without having to build a whole new fence.

As a result it was decided that the aim of the company would be to design tools and equipment that makes it easier and faster to build or repair fences and help those who live on the land make the best use of what they already have.

Seven years on and Wireman has many unique tools on the market and will continue to release more, including the Fence Magician which wraps up (to pardon the pun), the original problem we set out to solve.