You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 07.01

The Clay Hole University · Hand Building

How to Make a Pinch PotPrintable pottery guide

The oldest technique in ceramics, taught properly: seven moves, an even quarter inch wall, and no wheel needed.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Beginner
  • 29 printable pages
  • 3 video picks
  • 7-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 Make a Pinch Pot printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “How to Make a Pinch Pot” lesson. It teaches the whole pot in seven moves, then six steps in full: the ball, the floor, pinch and turn about two hundred times, the shape and the rim, the outside, and the drying and firing. On paper it adds a line for each of your first ten pots, a troubleshooting table, a one page reference, a quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

Prefer to read it online first? The “How to Make a Pinch Pot” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 29printable pages, US Letter
  • 7quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 3hand-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, no permission needed

A pinch pot is the oldest thing in ceramics and the only technique that needs nothing but a lump of clay and two hands. It is also the one most people are taught badly, in about four minutes, as something to get out of the way before the real work starts.

It is not that. Pinching well is a genuine skill, and the thing it teaches, feeling wall thickness with your fingers rather than looking at it, is the single most useful habit in pottery. Every potter who can throw a thin wall learned that feel somewhere, and this is the cheapest place to learn it.

It is also slow, quiet work at a table with both hands in clay, and nothing about to collapse. Which makes it about the best possible thing to learn from a page propped up beside you.

Look inside

Real pages, for a table and two hands

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

  • Page 5 of the “How to Make a Pinch Pot” printable guide: the whole pot in seven moves, shown with the sample watermark
    The whole pot in seven movesThe five minute version, up front, so you can start tonight and read the detail as you go.
  • Page 6 of the “How to Make a Pinch Pot” printable guide: what you need on the table, shown with the sample watermark
    What you need on the tableA short list, and genuinely short. Most of it you already own and none of it is a machine.
  • Page 20 of the “How to Make a Pinch Pot” printable guide: when it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    When it goes wrongEach fault with why it happened, what to do next time, and what can still be done with the pot in front of you.
  • Page 17 of the “How to Make a Pinch Pot” printable guide: the first ten pinch pots, shown with the sample watermark
    The first ten pinch potsOne line per pot. The wall gets evener and the rim gets better, and this is where you watch it happen.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

Why pinching, of all things, belongs on paper

This is slow, repetitive work at a table with clay all over both hands, and it is the technique most often rushed. A page slows it down and keeps the numbers honest.

  • It stays open for the whole pot

    A good pinch pot takes an hour, not four minutes. The page sits there for all of it without locking or needing a clean finger.

  • It keeps the one number that matters

    A quarter inch, even, all the way round. Having it printed where you can see it is how a guess becomes a measurement.

  • It shows you the wall getting evener

    Ten lines, one per pot. Nothing else makes the improvement visible, because each pot on its own just feels like clay.

  • One page lives on the table for good

    The whole pot, compressed onto a single sheet you can pull out of the binder and keep wherever you work.

How the guide is built

Built for slow work, not a four minute demonstration

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 an even wall actually feels like between two fingers.

  • The whole pot in seven moves, up front

    The five minute version before any of the detail, so you can start tonight and read the rest as you go.

  • The complete lesson, redesigned for paper

    Six steps in full, from making a properly round ball to the drying and the kiln, with tick lists you work through rather than paragraphs you re-read.

  • Opening the floor, and stopping earlier than feels right

    The step that decides whether the bottom is a floor or a hole, and the one beginners take too far almost every time.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Three videos, three different methods, each with a note on why it is worth your time and a code that goes straight to it.

  • Plain words for the jargon

    A sixteen term glossary, written the way we would explain it sitting across the table from 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 “How to Make a Pinch Pot” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

The pinch pot is where almost every potter alive started, and it is usually taught in four minutes as something to get past. Teaching it properly costs nothing, and it is the cheapest possible way into this craft, 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 07.01, the first 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
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Where this leads

What to build once the wall is even

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 ten pots, a troubleshooting table, a one page reference, a printed quiz with an answer key, and a glossary.
Do I need a wheel or any equipment?
No. A lump of clay, two hands and a table. There is a short tool list and most of it you already own, and none of it is a machine.
How thick should the wall be?
About a quarter of an inch, and even all the way round, which is the whole skill. The guide teaches you to feel it between two fingers rather than judge it by eye.
How much clay do I start with?
About the size of an orange. The guide gives the weight too, and says what changes if you go bigger before the wall gets even.
Is this too basic if I already throw?
If your thrown walls are already even, probably. If they are not, this is the cheapest way to learn the feel that fixes them, and plenty of experienced potters come back to pinching for exactly that.
Can I do this with air dry clay?
The technique is the same, but the guide covers real clay, drying and firing, because that is what the University teaches. The pinching itself transfers.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes, more than most. It needs a table and two hands. 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.

Leave this open, and go and make one

Print it tonight. Make a properly round ball, stop opening the floor earlier than feels right, and write the line for pot number one.

Get the printable · $5.00

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