Douglas Horrell

Douglas has been teaching with Rekindle since 2017 and specialises in hand-carved functional items such as spoons and bowls, as well as having  an interest in chair-making and other greenwood traditions. He also has a growing interest in toolmaking - forging his own tools from high carbon steel. He hopes to offer locally-made carving tools to Rekindle students in the future. 

Douglas is currently a part-time resident in the Rekindle workshop funded by a Creative New Zealand Arts Grant. He can be found working in our Arts Centre workshop on most Thursdays, & often teaches spoon-carving & tool sharpening within our Resourceful Skills workshop programme.  @cleftcraft

Image above by Justyn Denney.

Coffee scoop, Winter 2020

End Grain Cups, Winter 2020

Handled Cups, Autumn/Winter 2020

Spoon carving Winter 2020

Kuksa Winter 2020

Bowls Autumn/Winter 2020

Tool-making Autumn/Winter 2020

Greenwood Carving, Spring/Summer 2019

Detail of flat surface handle design in NZ red beech.

Eating spoons with flat surface handle design.

Large cherry serving spoon. This is one of the new workshops that Douglas teaches.

Chip carved designs.

Hollowing cups with traditional hook tool forged by Douglas also.

Completed cups & spoons.

Greenwood Lathe Build, Spring/Summer 2019

Douglas built this lathe to enable him to practice greenwood bowl & leg/spindle turning. He made the components of the lathe with found materials & greenwood. Once the lathe was built, he then needed to make the bowl turning tools to use with it.

Cutting the planed macrocarpa beams to size for the poppets.

A robinia log rived into 4 pieces that become legs for the lathe.

Lathe bed assembled & ready for metal work to be installed.

Left lathe centre being polished.

Both metal lathe centres in place.

Completed lathe with bowl turning poppets in place.

Completed lathe with spindle/leg turning poppets in place.

Forging Greenwood-working Tools, 2018-2019

Heating car leaf spring steel in charcoal forge.

 Forged detail knife blanks.

Forged scorp tool ready for handle fitting & sharpening.

Handle fitting & final sharpening of spoon knives.

Large carving hook with forged fuller (concave groove) on inside, scorp & detail knife.

Rounder plane, made for making 1.5 inch round tenons.

Forged carving knife blank.

Carving knife, bevels ground.

Carving knife with handle fitted.

Drawings for bowl turning hooks.

Bowl turning hooks with bevels ground before bending.

Completed & sharpened bowl turning hooks.

Greenwood Bowl Turning, Summer 2019

NZ Beech bowl in progress, showing the characteristic shavings from hook tools.

Forged bowl turning hook tools.

Bowl in progress, shaping the outside.

Finished beech & walnut bowls.