You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 07.12

The Clay Hole University · Hand Building

Any Dish as a Slump MoldPrintable pottery guide

Your kitchen is already full of slab molds. This is the workbook for finding out which of your dishes work, lining them so the clay comes back out, and letting a slab settle into a bowl instead of being pushed into one.

$7.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Beginner
  • 23 printable pages
  • 5 video picks
  • 8-question quiz + answer key

Flip through the free sample
  • Instant download
  • Prints on any home printer
  • The full lesson stays free online
The printable, at a glance

What is the Any Dish as a Slump Mold printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “Using Any Dish or Pan as a Slump Mold” lesson, rebuilt for a kitchen table. The teaching is the same. What is added is the paper: a tick list at every step, a log for working through your own cupboard, a one page card for the six moves and the six ways it goes wrong, a glossary, and the quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Using Any Dish or Pan as a Slump Mold” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 23printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 5hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 13glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

The mold is in your cupboard. The knowledge is the hard part

Nobody needs to buy anything to make a bowl this way. A mixing bowl, a pie dish, a plate, a baking tray: hold it up, look at the profile, and if the widest point is the rim then it is a slump mold. That is the whole entry fee.

What goes wrong is never the dish. It is the three decisions around it. Whether anything went between the dish and the clay. How thick the slab was and how much bigger than the dish you cut it. Whether you let the slab settle or pushed it down with your thumbs. Every kitchen dish bowl that failed broke one of those three, and all three happen while your hands are covered in clay and nowhere near a screen.

So this one is a workbook. Tick the barrier off before the slab goes anywhere near the dish. Tick the thickness. Tick that you eased it rather than pressed it. Then log which of your own dishes worked, because your cupboard is not our cupboard and nobody can tell you that part.

Look inside

Real pages, for a kitchen table

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark. The full guide has no watermark.

  • Page 5 of the “Any Dish as a Slump Mold” printable guide: the whole technique in six moves, shown with the sample watermark
    The whole technique in six movesUp front, before any of the detail, so you can start tonight and read the rest as you go.
  • Page 6 of the “Any Dish as a Slump Mold” printable guide: pick the dish, then line it, shown with the sample watermark
    Pick the dish, then line itThe one test that separates a slump mold from a trap, and the three barriers that stop clay welding itself to glass.
  • Page 12 of the “Any Dish as a Slump Mold” printable guide: six ways it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Six ways it goes wrongEach one with what to do next time and what to do about the piece in front of you right now.
  • Page 10 of the “Any Dish as a Slump Mold” printable guide: eight dishes, and what each one did, shown with the sample watermark
    Eight dishes, and what each one didA log for your own cupboard, because which of your dishes work is the one thing we cannot tell you.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

Your hands are wet and the slab is already going soft

This is a table, a dish and a slab that will not wait while you scrub back through a page with a wet thumb. The decisions are quick, they happen in order, and every one of them is easier to get right if it is sitting next to the dish.

  • A tick list at every step

    Four short lists, one per step, in the order they happen. The barrier before the slab. The thickness before the settle. The trim before it comes out. Ticking a box is faster than remembering.

  • The numbers, where you can see them

    A quarter inch for a plate, three eighths for a bowl, two inches of margin all round, ten minutes uncovered. Four numbers decide the job and all four are on the one page card.

  • A log of your own cupboard

    Eight lines for eight dishes: which one, slump or hump, what you lined it with, how thick, and whether you would use it again. After eight you will know your own shelves without thinking.

  • The rescue page, for the bowl in front of you

    Six things that go wrong, each one with a next time and a this piece. The one you need is the one you are holding, and you can find it without typing anything.

How the guide is built

Built for a kitchen table and a bowl from the cupboard

Every guide in the series is designed as a workbook first and a document second. For this one, that means the decisions are on paper in the order you make them, and the part nobody can teach you, which of your dishes work, has somewhere to be written down.

  • A learning dashboard before page one

    What you will learn, what is on the table, the mistakes people make first, and what a finished bowl should look like, all before any teaching starts.

  • The whole technique in six moves, up front

    So you can start tonight on a shallow dish and read the detail as you go.

  • Four steps, each with its own tick list

    The dish and the barrier, the slab, the settle, then trimming and drying. Every step ends with the boxes to tick before you move on.

  • Slump and hump, side by side

    Clay inside the dish shrinks away from it. Clay over the dish shrinks onto it and cracks if it is still there when it gets tight. Which one you chose changes when the piece comes off, and the guide never lets that get vague.

  • A log, a one page card and a glossary

    Eight dishes to test, the six moves and the six faults on a single card to keep by the dish, and every term the lesson uses defined and cross referenced.

  • The full quiz, with an answer key that explains itself

    Every question from the free lesson, and an answer key that says why the right answer is right rather than just marking it.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Using Any Dish or Pan as a Slump Mold” lesson at The Clay Hole University, which anybody can read online without paying anything or handing over an email address.

People come in thinking a bowl needs a wheel. It does not. It needs a shape to settle into, and your kitchen is full of shapes. Something that cheap to learn has no business being behind a paywall, so the lesson stays free.

The University is free and stays free. The guides are the version rebuilt for paper with an unreasonable amount of care, and buying one keeps the free side going.

Thank you. Genuinely.

Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole
Collect them

Build a little pottery library

Every guide carries a permanent number. This one is 07.12, in the hand building section, alongside pinching, coiling, slab work and the studio’s own slab molds. The number never changes and never gets reused, so a shelf of them stays in order.

Put any five printable guides in your cart and the cheapest one is on us. Put in nine and the two cheapest are on us. It happens automatically at checkout, no code to remember.

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Where this leads

What to make once the first bowl comes out clean

These lessons pick up where this one leaves off. Each one is free to read now.

Good questions

Before you buy

Is this different from the free lesson?
The teaching is the same, and the free lesson is complete. The printable adds the paper: a tick list at every step, a log of eight dishes from your own cupboard, a one page card with the six moves and the six faults, a glossary, and the quiz with an answer key that explains every answer. It is the version built to sit on the table and get clay on it.
Do I need to buy anything to do this?
No, and that is rather the point. A dish from your kitchen, plastic wrap, a slab and a sponge. The guide lists six things and the first two are already in your cupboard.
Which dishes actually work?
Any dish that is widest at its rim, so the clay can lift straight out: mixing bowls, salad bowls, plates, pie dishes, baking trays, lids, plant saucers. Anything with a lip that curls inward, or a belly wider than the rim, traps the piece before it has even started to shrink. The guide gives you the test and a log for working through your own shelves.
What is the difference between slump and hump?
Slump means the clay goes inside the dish; hump means it goes over an upturned one. Slump is the safe one, because clay shrinks away from the dish as it dries and can stay in until leather hard. A hump molded piece shrinks onto the dish and has to come off early. The guide sets the two out side by side and is specific about when each one comes off.
Do I really need plastic wrap?
Yes, or a thin cloth, or cornstarch on a smooth dish. Wet clay grips bare glass, ceramic, plastic and metal and will not let go. It is the rule people skip exactly once.
Is this too early for me?
No. It is the one in the series with the lowest entry fee: if you can roll a slab you can do this tonight, and the guide is written for a first bowl. The skill level on the cover says beginner and means it.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes. The whole guide is written for potters anywhere, with a kitchen dish and a table. A single section covers the things that are specific to our building, and it is clearly marked so you can skip it.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is built for plain letter paper on any home printer, with no bleed and nothing that runs off the edge.
Can I print it in black and white?
Yes. It is designed to survive it: everything that carries meaning is carried by the words and the layout, not by color, and the tick boxes and tables print cleanly in grayscale.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The one page technique card and the log are the two worth printing on their own, and the page numbers are on the contents page so you can pick them straight out.
Can I use it on an iPad or laptop instead?
You can, and it reads fine on a screen. We would still print the tick lists and the log, because the whole argument for this guide is that your hands are covered in clay at the moment you need them.
How do I get it after I buy?
It downloads the moment you check out, and the link is emailed to you as well, so you can print it again later from any device.
What if the guide gets updated?
Every edition carries its version number on the last page. When a guide is corrected or improved we put the new edition up, and there is a code on that page that always points at the latest one.
Can I share it with my class or studio?
The copy is licensed to you, for your own use, and you can print it as many times as you like. Please do not forward, upload or resell it, and that includes classes, studios, schools and group chats. If you would like to use it with a group, ask us about group licensing and we will sort something out.

Print it, then go and look at your cupboard

Find the dish whose widest point is the rim. Line it, roll a slab a shade thicker than feels right, slide it off the board and let it settle. Ease it, do not push it. The first one will have a crease where you pushed, and the second one will not.

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