Australian construction technology, built for the job
Ironworth was founded to deliver practical grading and automation solutions that improve efficiency and reduce operating costs. We combine deep industry experience with proven technology so contractors achieve better results with less effort.
Built from experience. Driven by a better way.
IRONWORTH exists because we believe compact grading can be done better.
Our story starts long before IRONWORTH was founded.
Brad Litchfield has spent much of his working life around precision grading systems. His passion started at just 14 years old, when his father introduced Level Best — the first automated laser grader blade of its kind in Australia — in 2008.
From there, Brad developed an unusually deep understanding of the technology and the machines behind it.
Not just how they work.
How they should be built. What makes them perform. What breaks. How to automate them with laser, GPS and UTS. And, most importantly, how they can make a genuine difference to small, owner-operated businesses.
Over the years, that knowledge was built through hands-on experience across operations, machinery, grading technology, product development and the customers who use these systems every day.
Then Brad spent his final two years in the industry working in sales.
It was there that the gap in the market became impossible to ignore.
A better blade for the people doing the work
The premium automated grading systems available to the market were highly capable — but they came with a price that put them beyond the reach of many of the businesses Brad most wanted to serve.
At the same time, customers were asking for something different.
They wanted the precision and efficiency of automation, but they didn't want to give up the versatility of a conventional grader blade.
That meant a blade that could do more than a box blade.
Something capable of producing highly accurate finishes, while still being practical for the everyday work of a small contractor, farmer or owner-operator.
So in May 2026, Brad set out to build it.
Not another attachment.
A better way to grade.
Power. Angle. Tilt. Proven geometry, rethought for automation.
PAT stands for
Power.Angle.Tilt.
The three fundamental blade movements used on a bulldozer's PAT blade.
The result was the IRONWORTH PAT-Grader.
The concept was simple: take the proven geometry and versatility of a PAT blade and bring it to the compact track loader.
But the real innovation came from understanding how those movements interact with automation.
Brad's experience suggested that automating Lift and Tilt could offer significant advantages over traditional Lift/Lift grader designs.
The first PAT-Grader was built, tested and refined to prove the concept.
It did.
The PAT-Grader demonstrated that its geometry could produce a highly precise finish with surprisingly little operator input — even without automation.
That made it useful in its own right.
But it also created something more.
A blade geometry designed to work with automation, rather than simply having automation added to it.
Where manual precision meets automation
Laser grading was never new to Brad.
He already knew how effective laser guidance could be when paired with a properly designed grader.
But developing the PAT-Grader revealed something even more interesting.
The precision of manual Lift combined with automated cross-slope control created an exceptionally natural relationship between operator and machine.
Instead of automation trying to control everything, the operator retains control of the blade's most immediate movement while the system manages the cross-slope.
The result is a system where the operator, blade and automation each do what they do best.
Less correction. Less input. More consistency. More productivity.
And because the underlying PAT-Grader is designed to perform without automation, the operator isn't dependent on expensive technology to achieve a precise result.
Automation becomes an advantage — not a requirement.
Built at our premises, west of Sydney
IRONWORTH isn't built around theory.
Brad designs and engineers the blades himself, drawing on years of experience with grading systems, hydraulics, automation and the realities of working machinery.
The blades are manufactured, painted, assembled and tested at the IRONWORTH premises west of Sydney, with local materials and components sourced and overseen throughout the process.
Every part has a reason for being there.
Every movement has a purpose.
And every design decision is judged against one question:
Does it make the operator better at the job?
That's the standard we build to.
Built for the business behind the machine
IRONWORTH was created for the businesses that don't have machines sitting around doing one specialised job.
The owner-operator.
The small contractor.
The earthmoving business that needs one machine to do five different jobs.
The farmer who needs to maintain tracks one day and prepare a shed pad the next.
These businesses don't need unnecessary complexity.
They need equipment that works hard, performs properly and earns its place on the machine.
That's why we're not interested in building attachments simply because we can.
We're interested in building better tools for the people doing the work.
IRONWORTH is proudly Australian.
Born from decades of experience in precision grading.
Designed and engineered in Australia.
Built around the needs of the people who actually operate these machines.
And driven by one simple idea:
There is always a better way to do the job.
Ironworth
Redefining Precision in Compact Grading.
Help our customers work smarter, faster and more profitably.
We provide reliable and innovative construction technology to civil contractors, councils, mining operators and agricultural producers across Australia. From machine control retrofits to heavy-duty box blades and supporting components, every product we supply is chosen — or built — to perform shift after shift.
What we stand on
Reliability
Equipment that performs every shift, in real Australian conditions.
Innovation
Smart automation that's genuinely useful in the cab and on the job.
Practical Solutions
Fit-for-purpose systems sized to the work, never over-engineered.
Customer Support
Real people, real follow-through, long after the invoice is paid.
Quality Engineering
Built from quality components and proven design principles.