Wedging, method two
How to spiral wedge your clay
This is the one that looks like magic on the internet and like a car accident on your table for the first month. Everybody watches Florian Gadsby do it, decides it looks like breathing, walks up to a wedging table and produces something shaped like a failed mushroom.
Moves more clay for less effort than anything else you can do by hand, and takes about a month before it stops feeling stupid. Here is the method with the reasoning stripped out.
Give it a few weeks and a decent pile of ruined lumps before you decide whether it is for you. Once it clicks, it moves more clay with less effort than anything else you can do by hand.
The whole thing
What it is and how to stand
Wedging is kneading: you work the clay until the wet and stiff patches stop behaving like separate materials and the air is gone. What spiral adds is leverage. One continuous press works the whole lump instead of the front half, so ten pounds is manageable rather than a wrestling match, and it leaves you a cone.
Set up: three or four pounds, more than you would use for ram’s head, because the spiral needs something to form in. Clear table on all sides, since the lump rotates and your elbow swings with it. One foot forward, hips turned.
If you are left-handed: mirror everything below. Left hand presses, right hand holds the wall, the lump turns the other way. Nothing else changes.
Worth knowing: no amount of wedging stops a pot exploding in the kiln. Water does that, not air. Drying all the way through is the thing that saves your work in there.
Why bother
Four reasons to spend a month looking foolish
Wedging in general is kneading: you work the clay until it stops being several materials pretending to be one lump. What spiral adds is leverage.
It moves more clay per push
This is the reason to bother learning it. A spiral press works the whole lump instead of the front half, so ten pounds is genuinely manageable rather than a twenty minute wrestling match. That is why production potters use it.
It blends the soft and the stiff
A bag of clay is never one consistency. Firm patches and wet patches sit next to each other and behave like different materials on the wheel, which is most of what people mean when they say a lump will not center. The spiral folds them through each other.
It squeezes the pockets out
Air trapped in a wall turns into a blister that opens under your finger at the moment the wall gets thin. A continuous press with nowhere to fold has very little opportunity to put new air in, which is exactly the point.
It leaves you a cone
The finished shape drops onto a wheel head point-down and centers with less argument than a ball does. Small thing. You notice it every single time once you have noticed it once.
What it does not do
No amount of wedging, spiral or otherwise, stops a pot exploding in the kiln. Water does that, not air. A piece that feels bone dry on the outside while the middle is still damp turns that trapped moisture into steam, and steam wants roughly seventeen hundred times the room the water did. Something gives, and it is usually your pot.
So wedge for the reasons above, and let drying it properly do the job people keep giving to wedging. The longer version of that correction lives on the main wedging page .
Before you touch it
Set the table up in your favor
Spiral is fussier about conditions than the other two methods, and a decent number of people who think they cannot do it are actually just fighting the table.
The surface matters more here
Ours are canvas stretched over concrete board. Spiral needs the clay to grip and pivot rather than slide, so a slippery surface makes the method almost impossible to learn on. Too dry and porous is the other failure: it drinks the water out of your lump while you work. Plaster and unsealed wood are fine. Sealed laminate and bare metal are not.
Room to turn
You need clear table on all sides, because the lump rotates and your elbow swings with it. Wedging in a corner is how people end up doing tiny cramped presses and wondering why no spiral appears.
Start bigger than you think
This is the opposite of the ram’s head advice, and it surprises people. Three or four pounds gives the spiral something to actually form in. Under two pounds the lump is too small to hold the shape and you will not be able to tell whether it is working.
A note for left-handers
Everything on this page is written right-handed, because writing it both ways at once makes it unreadable. If you are left-handed, mirror it: left hand presses, right hand holds the wall, and the lump turns the other way. Nothing else changes.
The motion
What your hands are actually doing
Look down at the lump from above and the whole method makes more sense than it does from the side. One hand presses, one hand walls it in, and the clay turns a little between every press.
Four steps, seen from above. Written right-handed.
- 1 The pressing hand Your dominant hand, and the only one doing the compressing. The heel of the palm lands on the near-right shoulder of the lump, never in the middle of it.
- 2 The steering hand It looks like it is loafing and it is not. It holds the outer wall so the clay goes up into the spiral instead of spreading out sideways.
- 3 The spiral ridge The fold that climbs the lump a little further with every press. It is the readout for the whole method. No ridge means the two hands are not cooperating yet.
- 4 The turn between presses Ten or fifteen degrees, not a quarter turn. Those small increments are what actually build the spiral.
- 5 The base stays planted The bottom of the lump barely moves. The top rolls over it. If the whole thing is skidding across the table, you are pushing out instead of down.
- 1 The pressing hand Your dominant one. Heel of the palm on the near-right shoulder of the lump, never the middle.
- 2 The steering hand Holds the outer wall so the clay climbs into a spiral instead of spreading sideways. It only looks idle.
- 3 The spiral ridge Climbs a little further with every press. No ridge means the two hands are not cooperating yet.
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1
Stand off the corner, not square on
One foot forward, hips turned slightly so your right shoulder is over the lump. Spiral is an asymmetric motion and standing square to the table fights it the entire time.
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2
Left hand on the outer wall
Fingers up the far-left side of the lump, holding it in. This hand is a wall, not a passenger. Everything the right hand does gets contained by it.
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3
Press with the heel of your right palm
Down into the table and slightly away from you, landing on the near-right of the lump rather than the centre. Roughly toward ten o’clock, if it helps to have a direction.
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4
Let the press carry a small twist
As you push, the heel rolls a little. That rotation is the entire difference between this and a lopsided ram’s head, and it is the part that takes weeks rather than minutes.
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5
Turn the lump a little and repeat
Fingers come under, roll the clay back toward you, and turn it ten or fifteen degrees before the next press. Small turns. A quarter turn mashes the same three spots over and over and leaves the middle untouched.
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6
Finish by rolling it into a cone
The lump wants to end as a cone with the spiral running up it, which is conveniently the exact shape that goes onto a wheel head easiest. Ease off the pressure and roll the point up over the last few turns.
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1
Stand off the corner
One foot forward, hips turned so your right shoulder is over the lump. Standing square to the table fights this method the whole way.
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2
Left hand walls it in, right hand presses
Left fingers up the far side holding the clay in. Right heel presses down and slightly away, landing on the near-right of the lump rather than the middle. Two hands, two different jobs. This is the whole method.
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3
Turn it a little, and only a little
Ten or fifteen degrees between presses, not a quarter turn. Small turns are what build the spiral. Never fold it over.
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4
Finish as a cone
Ease off over the last few turns and roll the point up. A cone drops onto a wheel head and centers with less argument than a ball.
How to Spiral Wedge Clay
Video by Florian Gadsby . Not ours, not affiliated with us, and better at explaining this than another paragraph from me would be.
Keep the beat
A pulse to press along to
Spiral lives or dies on evenness. Same size press, same size turn, over and over, and it is the evenness rather than the strength that builds the ridge. So slow it down and give it a beat. One press per click, one small turn between them.
Fresh from the bag it has already been de-aired at the factory, so this is about evening out the moisture, waking the clay up, and getting the rotation consistent.
Nothing coming out of the speaker? Some phone browsers keep audio locked until you have tapped something on the page. Tap start once more and it usually wakes up. The dot keeps time either way.
Go slower than you think while you are learning. Speed is the last thing to arrive and the first thing that wrecks the shape, and a spiral built at forty a minute is worth four built at eighty.
The usual suspects
Six ways this goes sideways
Three ways this goes sideways
The first two account for most of it. If a member asks me to watch them spiral wedge, I am looking at their left hand and at how far they turn the lump, and it is almost always one of those two.
The first two account for nearly all of it.
You made a mushroom
The signature spiral failure. The lump spreads out at the top and flattens like a cap, and it happens when your steering hand is not really holding the outer wall. The fix here is almost never more pressure. It is more support.
Both hands are doing the same thing
This is the one that unlocks the method, so it is worth reading twice. Ram’s head is symmetrical. Spiral is not. One hand presses, one hand steers, and almost everybody who struggles is struggling because they are trying to make both hands move the same way, which is exactly the skill they just spent a month building.
Your turns are too big
A quarter turn feels efficient and it is the reason your lump has three flat spots and no spiral. Ten or fifteen degrees between presses. It feels absurdly small right up until the ridge appears.
You are folding it over
Same rule as every other method, because it is the rule. The second you fold clay onto itself you put air straight back where you just took it from. The motion is one continuous press and turn, never a flap and a slap.
Your wrists are the engine
Feet apart, one foot forward, torso rocking with the motion. Done right your arms are guides and your body is the engine. Done wrong your wrists are the engine, and wrists were never designed to be engines.
You quit at week two
Not a technique fault, but it is the most common reason people never get this one. It genuinely looks like a car accident on your table for the first few weeks. That is the normal experience and not a signal about you.
Both hands doing the same thing
The one that unlocks it. Spiral is not symmetrical. One hand presses, one hand steers, and almost everybody struggling is trying to make both move the same way.
Your turns are too big
A quarter turn feels efficient and is why your lump has three flat spots and no spiral. Ten or fifteen degrees. It feels absurdly small until the ridge appears.
You made a mushroom
Spreading out and flattening at the top means the steering hand is not really holding the wall. The fix is more support, almost never more pressure.
Spiral Wedging: Preparing The Clay
Video by Kara Leigh Ford . Not ours, not affiliated with us, and better at explaining this than another paragraph from me would be.
A plan
Your first four sessions
Nobody learns this in an afternoon, and trying to is how people decide they are not spiral people. Break it into pieces and learn one at a time, because the whole motion at once is genuinely too much to hold in your head.
Two jobs, two hands
Forget the spiral completely. Three pounds. Left hand on the outer wall, right heel pressing the near-right shoulder, twenty presses. All you are teaching yourself is that the hands are not partners doing the same thing.
Add the turn
Same lump, same hands, but now turn it a little between every press. Small turns, and keep them the same size. This is the session where a faint ridge shows up for about four presses and then vanishes again. That counts.
Make it continuous
Thirty presses without stopping to look at it, which is harder than it sounds. Use the beat further up the page. You are chasing a rhythm now rather than a shape, and the shape turns up as a side effect of the rhythm.
Go bigger
Five pounds or more, and finish by rolling it into a cone. If it is working, this is the session where you notice the bigger lump is not proportionally harder, which is the whole payoff and the reason anybody puts up with weeks one through three.
Keep ram’s head in your back pocket the whole time. There is no rule that says you have to learn this before you are allowed to throw, and wedging badly on purpose to practice a method is a fine way to ruin an evening. The ram’s head walkthrough is here.
Checking your work
Read the lump, then cut it open
Spiral has one advantage over the other methods here: it shows its work on the outside. The ridge either climbed the lump or it did not, and you can see which from across the room. Here is what the three usual outcomes are telling you.
Spiral shows its work on the outside, so you can read it from across the room.
- Flat facets and no ridge Your turns are too big. The lump has been pressed in three or four places instead of continuously, and no amount of extra pressing will fix a rotation problem. Start turning less between presses and the ridge will find you.
- A ridge, but a mushroom top The spiral is forming and the outer wall is not being held. Bring the steering hand up higher on the side of the lump and let it take real load. The clay should be climbing, not spreading.
- A clean spiral running up a cone That is the shape. Cut it through the middle with a wire and check the face anyway, at least while you are learning: one even color and no dark pockets means the picture on the outside is telling the truth about the inside.
- Flat facets, no ridge Turns too big. Rotate less between presses; more pressing will not fix a rotation problem.
- A ridge but a mushroom top Bring the steering hand higher up the side and let it take real load.
- A clean spiral up a cone That is the shape. Wire it through the middle to confirm one even color and no dark pockets.
The outside is good evidence and not proof. A wire straight through the middle is still the only honest answer, and it takes four seconds. One even color, no dark pockets, no banding, and you are done.
That is the whole thing
Small turns, one hand pressing, no folding
That is spiral wedging. Everything else on this page is detail hanging off those three things, and the thing standing between you and it is almost never strength or talent. It is four weeks.
Keep ram’s head going while you learn it. There is no prize for the method you used, nobody has ever picked up a finished pot and known which way it was wedged, and a lump wedged well by the boring method beats a lump wedged badly by the impressive one every time.
Keep ram’s head going while you learn this. A lump wedged well by the boring method beats one wedged badly by the impressive one. There is a longer version of this page with the reasoning, a four-session plan and a rhythm trainer: switch it at the top.
We have wedging tables, and if you are a member who wants somebody to stand next to you for five minutes and tell you what your left hand is doing, ask. That is usually the whole fix. If you are not a member yet, here is how that works .
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