Jake Curd enjoys stump grinding and also being his own boss.
Jake Curd enjoys stump grinding and also being his own boss.
Eagle-eyed drivers travelling towards Hastings on Maraekakaho Road might notice a green “old dinosaur” machine with the name Stumposaurus painted on its side.
Nearby is its larger and younger sibling sporting orange livery. The yard is also home to a new mulching head and a Ford ute bearing a “Stumps”number plate.
This then is home to Hawke’s Bay Stump Grinding, a company established five years ago by Jake Curd.
Previously a mechanic and engineer for a local rural contracting company, Curd realised that there were no large stump grinders in the region and decided to build a machine himself.
But, as luck would have it, he found Stumposaurus on TradeMe, bought it and started working part-time grinding tree stumps.
It uses 90 litres of diesel in an hour and helps Curd provide a quick, efficient job of grinding stumps.
It gets through jobs quickly and grinds half a metre below ground level.
Clients are mainly local arborists, forestry companies, farmers and lifestyle block holders.
The largest stump he’s ever tackled was half the size of a shipping container.
Jake Curd has designed and manufactured this mulching head which, when completed, will be put into production.
Curd’s latest invention, just about to be completed, is a mulching head that can mulch up whole trees, slash, burn piles and orchards, it leaves a finer mulch than his other machine.
The next job, related to the cyclone, that Curd hopes to complete is helping with the clean-up at Tolaga Bay, grinding up logs and slash with a stump grinder.
