You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 07.02

The Clay Hole University · Hand Building

How to Coil Build PotteryPrintable pottery guide

The version where the coils disappear. Nine moves, one join repeated, and the four habits that decide whether you have made a pot or a stack of rings.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Beginner
  • 35 printable pages
  • 8 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 How to Coil Build Pottery printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “How to Coil Build Pottery” lesson. It teaches the blended kind, where the coils vanish into a wall, as one loop repeated: roll, attach, blend, shape, compress. It covers how thick a coil should be and what wall that gives you, the join that is the entire technique, shaping as you climb, and the rim, drying and kiln. On paper it adds a line for each of your first eight pots, a diagnosis section, a one page card for the table, a quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

Prefer to read it online first? The “How to Coil Build Pottery” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 35printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 8hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 16glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

No wheel, no machine, and one move you repeat a hundred times

Coil building is the most forgiving way into pottery and the easiest one to do badly. Everything rests on a single join, repeated until the pot is as tall as you want, and if the join is wrong you get a stack of rings that comes apart on the shelf or in the kiln.

The good news is that it is slow. There is no wheel spinning, nothing is about to collapse, and you have as long as you like to get it right. Which makes it the perfect thing to learn from a page propped up on the table beside you.

So that is what this is. The loop on one page, the numbers where you can check them, and a line for each of your first eight pots. The lesson reckons most people are making pots they are proud of by the third or fourth, and the log is there so you can watch that happen.

Look inside

Real pages, for a table and a pair of hands

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark. The full guide has none.

  • Page 7 of the “How to Coil Build Pottery” printable guide: how thick should a coil be?, shown with the sample watermark
    How thick should a coil be?The number everybody asks for, with what it actually gives you as a finished wall, so you are not guessing at either end.
  • Page 12 of the “How to Coil Build Pottery” printable guide: attach and blend, shown with the sample watermark
    Attach and blendStep three, which is the entire technique. The join, repeated, and what your thumbs are actually doing to it.
  • Page 18 of the “How to Coil Build Pottery” printable guide: the first eight coil pots, shown with the sample watermark
    The first eight coil potsOne line per pot. Most people are making something they are proud of by the third or fourth, and this is where you see it happen.
  • Page 21 of the “How to Coil Build Pottery” printable guide: when it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    When it goes wrongEach failure with what really caused it, and a box to tick for the ones that keep happening to you.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

Why coil building, of all things, belongs on paper

This is slow, repetitive work on a table, with both hands in clay and nothing about to go wrong in the next four seconds. That is exactly the situation a page is better at than a screen.

  • It stays open for the whole build

    A coil pot takes an evening, not twenty minutes. The page sits there for all of it without locking, dimming or needing a clean finger.

  • It keeps the loop in front of you

    Roll, attach, blend, shape, compress. The loop happens once per coil, dozens of times a pot, and having it printed is how it becomes automatic.

  • It holds the two numbers

    The coil thickness and the wall it gives you are the numbers people get wrong first. On the page they are there every time you reach for more clay.

  • One card lives on the table for good

    The loop, the numbers and the ribs, all on a single page you can pull out of the binder and keep wherever you build.

How the guide is built

Built for slow work with both hands busy

Every guide in the series is designed as a workbook first and a document second. For this one, that means:

  • A learning dashboard before page one

    What you will learn, what you need on the table, the mistakes that get made first, and what a properly blended join actually looks like.

  • The five minute version, up front

    The whole method in nine moves before any of the detail, so you can start tonight and read the rest as you go.

  • The complete lesson, redesigned for paper

    All six steps in order, with the join given the space it deserves, because attaching and blending is the entire technique.

  • The four habits that decide it

    What separates a pot from a stack of rings, named as habits rather than buried inside the steps.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Eight videos chosen for what they show rather than who made them, including two whole pots start to finish, each with a code that goes straight to it.

  • Plain words for the jargon

    A sixteen term glossary, from staggering and the serrated rib to scoring, slip and compression, written the way we would explain it at the table.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “How to Coil Build Pottery” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Coil building needs no wheel, no machine and nobody’s permission, which makes it the way a lot of people find out they actually like pottery. That should be free to learn, for anybody, anywhere.

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 07.02, the second guide in Hand Building. The series is designed to live together in a binder, section by section, so the craft ends up on your shelf in the order you learn it.

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.

See every printable guide

  • 5guides in your cart1 on us
  • 9guides in your cart2 on us
Where this leads

What to learn once the coils disappear

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 a line for each of your first eight pots, a diagnosis section with boxes to tick, a one page card for the table, a printed quiz with an answer key, and a glossary.
Do I need a wheel?
No. Nothing in this guide needs a wheel, a kiln at home, or any machine. A table, clay and your hands is the whole equipment list, and a banding wheel is nice rather than necessary.
How thick should my coils be?
The guide gives you a starting thickness and, more usefully, tells you what finished wall that turns into. Getting those two matched up is the thing beginners most often have backwards.
Why do my pots come apart at the joins?
Because the join was an attachment rather than a blend. The guide spends most of its length on that one move, and the diagnosis section separates the scoring problems from the blending problems.
Can you still see the coils?
Not in this version, and that is the point. This is the blended kind, where the coils vanish into a wall. If you want them visible that is a different and perfectly good choice, just not this one.
Is it really going to take eight pots?
No. The lesson reckons most people are making something they are proud of by the third or fourth. The log has eight lines because watching the first few change is the part that keeps people going.
Which clay should I use?
Anything with some tooth to it will coil, and the guide explains what to look for rather than naming a bag. Our own clay bodies all work, and the page about them is marked as ours.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes. Coil building is the same on any table. The page about our own clay is marked as ours, and the studio numbers carry the date they were true.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is designed 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.
Can I print it in black and white?
Yes. Nothing depends on color, and we looked at the workbook pages in grayscale to be sure.
Can I use it on an iPad or laptop instead?
Yes. Every QR code in the guide is also a tappable link, so on a screen you just tap instead of scanning.
How do I get it after I buy?
Right after checkout you get a download link by email and on your order confirmation page. Each link works up to seven times.
What if the guide gets updated?
Every edition carries a version number. When we correct or improve a guide, everyone who bought it gets an email with the new edition at no charge.
Can I share it with my class or studio?
Please don’t. It is licensed for your own personal use. Anyone can read the full lesson free online, and the printable is here if they want their own copy.

No wheel, no machine. Just clay and patience.

Print it tonight. Roll all your coils before you build, keep the loop where you can see it, and write the line for pot number one.

Get the printable · $5.00

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