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The Clay Hole University · Trimming, Handles and Drying

Drying Awkward Pieces Without CrackingPrintable pottery guide

Find the part of a mug, a plate, a box or a jar that will finish drying first, hold it back, and stop losing pieces days after you thought the hard part was done.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Advanced
  • 31 printable pages
  • 12 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 Drying Awkward Pieces Without Cracking printable guide?

It is the drying shelf on paper: why handles, plates, boxes and lidded jars crack days after they are finished, how to find the part that will dry first, how to hold it back with a strip of plastic or a sheet, the covering ladder from open air to a closed bag, how long each kind of piece wants, how to read a crack backward to its cause, and what can still be saved. Built to be printed, kept beside your shelf and written in.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Drying Awkward Pieces” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 31printable pages, US Letter
  • 6quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 12hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 20glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For the piece that cracked on day three

The crack was decided on the shelf

A mug does not crack because it was made badly. It cracks because one part of it dried faster than the part it is joined to: a thin handle on a thick wall, a rim over a wet floor, a lid beside its jar. The shrinking is the same everywhere. The timing is not.

That is good news, because timing is something you can manage. Find the part that will finish first, cover that part on its own, and let the rest catch up. A strip of plastic over a handle does more than any amount of hoping.

The guide sets that out for every kind of awkward piece, gives you a ladder of covers from open air to a closed bag, and turns each kind of crack into a note about which part was winning. It also has a page to write down what you covered and for how long, so the next piece starts from a note and not a guess.

Look inside

Real pages, for the shelf beside your work

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

  • Page 3 of the “Drying Awkward Pieces Without Cracking” 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 shelf, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls, and what a piece that dried well looks like.
  • Page 13 of the “Drying Awkward Pieces Without Cracking” printable guide: the covering ladder, shown with the sample watermark
    The covering ladderThe settings between open air and a closed bag with a damp cloth, what each one is for, and the move most people never make: covering only the part that will finish first.
  • Page 16 of the “Drying Awkward Pieces Without Cracking” printable guide: where it cracked, shown with the sample watermark
    Where it crackedThe start of the diagnosis section. A crack at a handle, through the floor or along a seam is a record of which part was winning, and each panel says what it means and what to do next time.
  • Page 25 of the “Drying Awkward Pieces Without Cracking” printable guide: every awkward piece, and how it dried, shown with the sample watermark
    Every awkward piece, and how it driedA log to write in: the fast part, what you covered it with, how many days, the day it came out and what happened. A few rows in and the next piece of that shape starts from a note.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

Drying is something you check on, day after day

A shelf of wet clay is looked at, lifted and covered again over a week or two, usually with slip on your hands. Paper suits that.

  • The ladder stays in view

    The settings sit on one page you can pin up, so you can see which one a piece is on and which one it moves to at your next visit.

  • It holds still

    A page stays where you put it while you lift a lid or lay a strip of plastic over a handle. It does not lock its screen, and it does not mind wet hands.

  • A number to write down

    The log has a column for the days you covered each piece. The next piece of that shape starts from a real number instead of a hunch.

  • One page for the shelf

    The one page summary has the rule, the settings, what each kind of piece wants and what a crack is telling you. It pins up beside your work.

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.

  • One reason for a floor crack

    The free lesson gave two causes for a crack through the floor. The guide and the lesson now agree on one: the floor dries later than the rim, and pressing it together helps but does not decide it.

  • Video notes that say what the video shows

    Several notes in the free lesson described things their videos do not show. We checked each against the video’s own description, chapters and frames, and rewrote them in the guide and in the lesson.

  • Written for any studio

    The Clay Hole’s own shelf sizes, bags and bisque rules are named and dated as Clay Hole facts, so a reader working somewhere else knows which line is ours and which is a rule of the craft.

  • A quiz that explains itself

    A short quiz, and an answer key that gives the reason behind every answer rather than only the letter.

  • 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.

  • A page to keep by the shelf

    The one page summary is the whole guide on a single sheet: the rule, the settings, what each kind of piece wants and what a crack is telling you.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Drying Awkward Pieces” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

Everybody who makes mugs loses one. It is not bad luck and it is not carelessness. The clay dried at two speeds, and nobody told you which part was running ahead.

The answer is small: a piece of plastic over the fast part, and a little patience.

Once you look at a piece and ask what it is going to finish first, you stop losing the ones you cared about.

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 log to write in, a one page summary, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Is this only for mugs?
No. Handles are the case most people meet first, but the same idea runs through every awkward piece: anything with an added part, wide flat pieces like plates and platters, slab assemblies and their seams, and lids, spouts and closed forms.
What do I need to try it?
Plastic you can cut into strips, and a bag a little bigger than the piece, will do most of it. A cotton sheet, slats or a rack, and a plastic bat or a clean board help. The guide lists what to have on its first pages.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Advanced in the University because judging which part of a piece will finish first takes practice. The moves themselves are small, and if you have made a mug or a plate you can use it.
Does it only work at The Clay Hole?
The teaching works anywhere. A few lines are about the studio, such as its shelf sizes, its bags and its rule of a week in open air before the bisque table, and they are named as The Clay Hole’s so you can swap in your own.
What about a heat gun, a fan or a heat lamp?
The guide says why aiming heat or a fan at one side of a piece makes an awkward piece worse, and where a heat lamp is fine: brief stiffening of something soft, not drying.
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. Nothing in it depends on color to make sense: the text, the tick boxes and the tables are black on white, and color is used for headings and small labels.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The one page summary and the piece log are the two worth having by the shelf. 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 your shelf 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.

Find the fast part, and hold it back

Cover the part that will finish first, come down the ladder one setting at a time, and give a thick piece the week it needs in open air. Those habits take seconds and decide whether the piece is still whole after the bisque. The guide keeps them in front of you at the shelf.

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