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The Clay Hole University · Project Guides

Ceramic Lamp Bases, Holes and Wiring IncludedPrintable pottery guide

The whole lamp base, in the order you build it: the kit you buy first, the two holes and how big to cut them for your clay, and the wax that keeps the glaze from closing them.

$12.505 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Advanced
  • 28 printable pages
  • 6 video picks
  • 6-question quiz + answer key

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

What is the Ceramic Lamp Bases, Holes and Wiring Included printable guide?

It is the lamp base on paper: the one question that picks between the two hardware builds, hole sizes for every clay in the table and the arithmetic behind them, a wheel route and a hand built route, drying and glazing so neither hole closes, six ways it goes wrong, and the order the hardware goes in. Built to be printed, ticked off at the wheel and kept on the bench.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Ceramic Lamp Bases, Holes and Wiring Included” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 28printable pages, US Letter
  • 6quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 6hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 18glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For the pot with two holes in it

You buy the hardware before you touch the clay

A lamp base is a pot with a hole in the top, a hole low in the side, and a threaded pipe, a socket and a cord that somebody else already decided the size of. The clay part is not hard. The order is.

Every hole has to be cut while the clay is soft, weeks before you can test it against the hardware. Then the kiln shrinks it and the glaze creeps into it. Cut it too tight and the pipe will not go in. Skip the wax and a hole you were proud of fires shut.

The guide puts the sizes for each clay in a table with the arithmetic beside it, and a tick list on the bench sheet, so you are not trying to remember three eighths of an inch from a video you watched a month ago.

Look inside

Real pages, for a bench with a hole cutter on it

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark.

  • Page 3 of the “Ceramic Lamp Bases, Holes and Wiring Included” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginOne page before you touch clay: what you will learn, what to have on the bench, what is worth knowing, the pitfalls, and what a lamp base you can trust looks like.
  • Page 7 of the “Ceramic Lamp Bases, Holes and Wiring Included” printable guide: where the holes go, and how big, shown with the sample watermark
    Where the holes go, and how bigThe numbered section through a lamp base, with its key beside it: the pipe, the top hole, the hollow route between them and the cord hole low in the wall.
  • Page 12 of the “Ceramic Lamp Bases, Holes and Wiring Included” printable guide: drying and firing, shown with the sample watermark
    Drying and firingThe shade and stability rules, then the start of the drying section: how long a thick base takes, and why the rims dry and crack first.
  • Page 21 of the “Ceramic Lamp Bases, Holes and Wiring Included” printable guide: every lamp base, and the holes you cut, shown with the sample watermark
    Every lamp base, and the holes you cutA log to write in: the clay, the top hole and cord hole you cut, what they measured after the glaze firing, and what happened. Two rows in and the next one starts from numbers.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

Three eighths of an inch is not something you remember

A lamp base is a handful of measurements, made weeks before you can test them, with clay on your hands in between. Paper suits that.

  • The sizes sit beside the clay

    Every clay in the table has its shrinkage and the two hole sizes to cut, so you look up the bag you are using instead of doing the division at the wheel.

  • It holds still

    A page stays where you left it while you sponge a hole with both hands. It does not time out, and it does not need slip wiped off the screen.

  • A log for what the kiln did

    The log has columns for the two holes you cut and what they measured afterward. That gap is the number the next base is planned around.

  • One page for the wheel

    The numbers and the faults, on one page: which build, the sizes, what to check before the kiln, and what to do when a hole closes. It pins up beside the wheel.

How this one is built

Rebuilt for paper, not printed from a web page

Every guide in the series is set from scratch for print. Here is what that meant for this one.

  • Steam, not trapped air

    The lesson said a base with no vent is a pressure vessel. That is the trapped air myth: a thick pot comes apart in the kiln because water left in the clay turns to steam. The guide and the free lesson now say so.

  • Wet, and in a respirator

    Opening a glazed shut hole with a diamond bit, or sanding a fired base flat, puts silica dust in the air. Where the lesson said “a mask” or nothing at all, the guide says wet, never dry, in an N95 or better.

  • The kiln cookie, said out loud

    Every piece we fire sits on a kiln cookie, and the lesson never said so for a lamp base. The guide does, in the firing sentence and on the bench sheet.

  • A video note, corrected

    One note said a video was the only one that goes from a lump of clay to a plug in the wall. Another on the list does too, so the note now says two.

  • Written for any studio

    Our firing prices, our clays and our glaze count are named as ours and dated, so a reader working somewhere else knows which parts are a Clay Hole fact and which are a rule of the craft.

  • Codes that keep working

    Every link is a short Clay Hole address. If a video moves, we repoint the address and your printed copy still goes to the right place.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Ceramic Lamp Bases, Holes and Wiring Included” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

A lamp is the first project many potters meet where the pot is only half the job.

So the order turns around. You buy the kit, you pick it up, you turn it over in your hands, and then you make the pot to suit it.

Nobody has ever thought less of a potter for that.

Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole
The series

Build a little pottery library

Every printable guide in The Clay Hole University series takes one free lesson and rebuilds it for paper, with workbook pages, a glossary and a quiz with a worked answer key. Each one keeps its number for good, so a guide you buy today is the same guide in the same place next year.

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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Sits next to

Three lessons that pick up where this one leaves off

Each one is free to read online, and the codes in the guide take you straight there.

Questions

Good to know

How is this different from the free lesson?
The teaching is the same, and the free lesson is not going anywhere. The guide is that teaching rebuilt for paper: a learning dashboard at the front, a bench sheet, a log to write in, a one page summary of the numbers and the faults, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Do I need a wheel?
No. The guide has a wheel route and a hand built route, and the question that picks your hardware is whether your whole hand fits inside the finished pot, not how you made it.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Advanced, and not because any one part is a new hand skill. It is the sequence: every hole is cut weeks before you can test it against the hardware, and the kiln changes it in between.
What do I need besides clay?
A lamp kit bought first, a hole cutter, wax resist, a kiln cookie to fire it on, a chopstick to test the route, and bumper pads for the foot. The harp and shade come last, after the base has fired. The guide lists all of it on the dashboard.
Does the guide teach me to wire a lamp?
It gives the order the parts go in, so the steps make sense when you get there, and it says plainly to use a listed kit and follow the paper in the box. We are a pottery studio, not electricians. If you are not sure, the guide says to take the base to a lamp shop.
Can I turn a pot I already fired into a lamp?
Often, yes, with a diamond hole saw made for tile and glass, kept wet, in an N95 or better with eye protection on. It usually works and sometimes fails, so the guide says not to learn on the piece you love.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is set for an ordinary home or office printer on regular US Letter paper, with nothing important near the edges, so normal printer margins cut nothing off.
Does it print in black and white?
Yes. The text is black on white and the workbook pages are ruled lines, so it reads fine in grayscale. The accent color is only a highlight.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The bench sheet, the one page summary and the log are the three worth having by the wheel. They are numbered pages like any other, so you can print those and leave the rest on a screen.
Can I read it on a screen instead?
Yes. It is an ordinary PDF and it reads fine on a tablet or a phone. The workbook pages are the ones that want paper, because you write on them.
How does delivery work?
It is a digital download. The link arrives by email and on the order confirmation page right after checkout, so you can have it printed and beside the wheel the same evening.
What happens if the guide is updated?
Every edition carries its version number on the last page. When we correct or improve one, the new edition replaces the old one in the shop, and we can send the updated link to anybody who already bought it.
Can I share it?
It is licensed for your own use. Print as many copies for yourself as you like, on as many of your own devices as you like. Please do not pass the file on, upload it or use it with a class or a group without asking us first.

Buy the kit first, and the rest is a pot

Buy the kit, cut both holes bigger than the arithmetic asks, wax both rims before the glaze goes on, and look through them before every firing. Do those four things and the rest is a pot you already know how to make. Skip any of them and no amount of skill at the wheel will save it, which is why this one is worth reading before you cut into the clay rather than after.

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