Pitchers and ewers that actually pour

A spout can only be as good as the rim it is cut from, and a rim can only be as good as the wall under it. Almost every spout problem is really a wall problem wearing a disguise.

1. Weigh more clay than feels necessary

   Two pounds throws a pitcher that holds roughly a pint and a half once it has shrunk and been fired. Three pounds gets you near a quart. Pitchers eat clay in the belly and in the handle, and a pitcher that turns out smaller than you pictured is the most common disappointment on this form.

2. Throw a straight cylinder and get it tall first

   Height is easy while the walls are thick and impossible once they are thin. Pull it up straight, get the wall even, and only then start pushing the belly out. Shaping early costs you the height you were about to need.

3. Leave the top half inch heavier than the rest

   Not thick. Heavier. That extra clay is the material your spout is going to be made from, and if you pull it all away on the final pass there is nothing left up there to move. This is the single most useful thing on this list.

4. Compress the rim properly, twice

   Once when you finish the last pull, and once more after shaping. A rim that has not been compressed will tear the moment you start stroking a spout into it, and it will crack later at the exact same spot.

5. Put the belly low

   A full pitcher is heavy and your wrist is the pivot. Weight low and close to the handle is comfortable. Weight high and far away is a pitcher people quietly stop using. This is why so many good pitchers look a little bottom-heavy on the shelf and feel perfect in the hand.

6. Measure it against your own hand

   Before it comes off the wheel, put your hand where the handle will go. If your thumb and fingers cannot comfortably reach around the form, the handle is going to have to do work it was not built for.

7. Collar the neck in a little

   Bringing the top in slightly does three things at once: it thickens the rim, it stiffens it, and it aims the future spout upward instead of outward. If collaring is new to you, we have a whole page on collaring in.

8. Rib the outside smooth under the spout

   Throwing rings look great and they are also little gutters. Directly below where the spout will sit, take the rings off with a rib so that if a drip ever does get around the edge, it has nothing to follow. Our page on using ribs while you throw covers the grip.

This is the method we teach first, it is the method most of the videos below are using, and it takes about ninety seconds once you have done it a few times.

Ninety seconds of work, done while the pot is still soft and still on the wheel.

1. Stop the wheel and dry your hands

   Everything from here is still work. Sponge the standing water out of the bottom of the pot first, because you are about to tip a soft pot around and water sloshing inside will do more damage than anything your fingers do.

2. Damp, not wet

   Wet the rim and your fingers lightly. Slip works better than clean water because it lubricates without soaking. Too much water is the number one cause of a spout that flops over, and you will not notice you have overdone it until it is too late.

3. Set the width before you shape anything

   Place the index and middle finger of one hand on the outside of the rim, about two fingers apart. That gap is now your channel, and everything between those fingers is going to move. Wider than about an inch and a half and you are building a sheet rather than a stream.

4. Support outside, stroke from inside

   Those two fingers stay put and act as the walls. The index finger of your other hand goes inside the pot, between them, and strokes down and outward over the rim. The outside fingers are doing at least half the work by refusing to let the clay spread sideways.

5. Stroke down and out, not just out

   The motion goes over the rim and down the outside a little, not straight outward. Straight outward gives you a flat shelf. Down and out gives you a lip that already wants to point at the glass.

6. Five or six light passes, never one hard one

   This is the step people get wrong, and it is the reason a spout tears. Each pass moves the clay a small amount and lets it recover. One firm pass moves it all at once and the rim splits or thins to nothing at the tip.

7. Look at it from the side, at eye level

   Crouch down. From above, every spout looks fine. From the side you can see whether the tip is actually the highest point of the rim, whether it has started to droop, and whether the profile has the little upward flick that stops the last drop hanging on.

8. Undercut the outside edge

   Four seconds of work and the whole page is about it, so it gets its own section next. Run a fingernail or the corner of a rib along the outside of the tip so the face comes back in sharply.

9. Tidy the rim either side and compress it again

   The rim on both sides of your spout has been pushed around. Run a damp finger along it, compress it, and check one last time from the side that the spout still sits higher than everything next to it.

1. Do it now, soft, on the wheel

   Sponge the standing water out of the bottom first, then wet the rim and your fingers lightly. Slip, not clean water. Too wet is the main reason a spout flops.

2. Set the width with two fingers on the outside

   Index and middle finger of one hand on the outside of the rim, about two fingers apart. That gap is your channel and those fingers are the walls.

3. Stroke down and out from the inside

   One finger of the other hand goes inside, between them, and strokes over the rim and a little way down the outside. Down and out, not straight out.

4. Five or six light passes

   Never one hard one. Each pass moves a little clay and lets it recover. One firm pass is how a rim tears.

5. Undercut the outside edge

   Run a fingernail or the corner of a rib along the outside of the tip so it ends in a corner rather than a curve. Four seconds, and it is the difference between pouring and dribbling.

6. Check the profile from the side

   Crouch to eye level. The tip must be the highest point of the rim. Then tidy and compress the rim on both sides of the spout.

A pitcher is the only common pot where the handle has a job beyond carrying. It has to aim the spout, and it has to do that while holding a pound or two of liquid at arm’s length.

• Directly opposite, checked from above. Put the pot on a banding wheel or turn it slowly on the table and look straight down. Mark the spot before you attach anything.
• Top of the handle at or just above the rim. Attach the top of the strap high on the shoulder. A handle that starts low forces the wrist to do the tipping, and a full pitcher will win that argument.
• Bigger than feels necessary. Wrap your hand around it while the clay is still soft. Then remember it is going to shrink by roughly a tenth on the way to being finished, and that a wet hand needs more room than a dry one.
• Attach the top first and let gravity do the curve. Join the top, let the strap hang and find its own shape, then bring the bottom in and attach it without stretching it back into place. A handle fought into position holds that tension and cracks along the join later.
• Score and slip both surfaces properly, not just one, and press from the join outward so there is no air trapped underneath. Our page on scoring and slipping joins has the detail.
• Give it somewhere for a thumb. A small flattened area or a pressed dimple at the top of the handle tells the hand which way is up without anybody having to think about it, and it makes the pour steadier.
• Check the balance before it dries. Hold the pot by the handle and tip it as if pouring. If your wrist has to roll to get the spout down, the handle is in the wrong place or the wrong shape, and this is the last moment you can do anything about it.

Handles are a whole craft on their own, and we are not going to reproduce that here. If you want the pulling technique itself, we have a full page on pulling handles for mugs and pottery.

This is where a pitcher that poured perfectly at bisque turns into one that dribbles, and almost nobody connects the two events because a week goes by in between.

• Dip the spout end last and lift it out first so the glaze runs back into the pot rather than gathering on the tip.
• Wipe the very edge of the tip while the glaze is still wet. A fingertip or a barely damp sponge, drawn along the outside edge, removes the bead without stripping the whole area. The edge itself does not need glaze to be food safe as long as the inside is covered.
• Check the underside of the spout before it goes on the cart. Hold it up and look at it in profile. A hanging drop of wet glaze is a permanent hanging drop of fired glaze.
• Keep the coat even and do not double dip the spout. Thickness in that one spot is worse than thin coverage everywhere.
• Wax the foot as usual and pay attention to the bottom of the handle, which is a natural place for glaze to pool and then run onto a shelf.
• Glaze fires to cone 5½ here, which is cone 5 with a twelve minute hold. Runny glazes run further at the end of that hold than people expect, so if you are using something mobile, keep it off the last quarter inch of the tip entirely.

If you want the dipping technique itself, we have a page on how to use dipping glazes, and glaze certification is covered in the glaze and underglaze training.