You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 08.07

The Clay Hole University · Project Guides

How to Make Ceramic ChainsPrintable pottery guide

Links closed around each other so they can never be taken apart, with the arithmetic that decides the size and the two rules that decide whether it survives.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Advanced
  • 33 printable pages
  • 11 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 Make Ceramic Chains printable guide?

It is the whole chain job on paper: how to size a link so it actually swings, two ways to build one, everything known about making a seam that does not open on the shelf, the week of drying that decides it, and the four ways to finish a chain so the kiln does not weld it into one lump. The lesson’s chain planner comes with it as a printed table, so you can work out the coil to roll before you touch any clay.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Ceramic Chains with Links That Move” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 33printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 11hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 24glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a chain is not like other projects

There is no second attempt at link twenty

Almost everything else in clay gives you a way back. Cut a bad rim off, reclaim a bad pot, start again on Thursday. A chain does not. Every link closes around the one before it, so the order is fixed, nothing can be opened again, and if the twentieth one is wrong you are not taking the first nineteen apart to reach it.

That is why this one is worth planning on paper. The link size is decided before you roll anything and cannot be changed afterwards. The seam either gets bridged or it opens on a shelf three days later, quietly, when you are not watching. And the glaze either touches where two links meet or it does not, because at temperature there is no careful version of that.

Get those three right and you pick up something that moves in every joint. Get one wrong and you have a very heavy sculpture of a chain.

Look inside

Real pages, for a table covered in coils

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

  • Page 3 of the “How to Make Ceramic Chains” printable guide: what you will learn, and what goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    What you will learn, and what goes wrongThe whole guide in one spread before you start: what to have ready, the ten ways people lose a chain, and what a finished one looks like.
  • Page 10 of the “How to Make Ceramic Chains” printable guide: which clay forgives a chain, and which punishes it, shown with the sample watermark
    Which clay forgives a chain, and which punishes itFive bodies with their shrinkage, what each one does under a joint, and an honest verdict on each. A chain is a lot of thin joins drying at once, which is exactly what grog is for.
  • Page 15 of the “How to Make Ceramic Chains” printable guide: everything known about not cracking at the seam, shown with the sample watermark
    Everything known about not cracking at the seamThe seven moves that make a join, in order, and the four things that quietly ruin one. This is the part that decides whether a chain lasts.
  • Page 9 of the “How to Make Ceramic Chains” printable guide: work back from the chain you want, shown with the sample watermark
    Work back from the chain you wantThe planner as a sheet you fill in: the finished length, the coil thickness, the hole, the links, the shrink figure, the coil to cut, and what it came out.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

Both hands are covered in slip, and the next link has to go through this one

Making a chain is a long evening of the same few moves, done in an order you cannot revisit. Once your hands are wet the last thing you want is to go looking for a phone to check whether the joint gets scored before or after it goes around its neighbor.

  • It does not go dark

    A page sits there showing the joint order while you work through thirty links. No timeout, no scrolling back to find your place, no wet knuckle on a screen.

  • The sums are already done

    Six coil thicknesses with the hole, the wet size, the coil to cut and the total clay to roll, all worked out. No arithmetic with slip on your fingers.

  • You can tick it as you go

    The joint order and the drying week as lists meant to be printed and marked with a pencil. Print them again for the next chain.

  • It survives the table

    Clay dust, slip, a damp board and plastic sheet everywhere. A printed page you can replace for nothing beats a phone you have to wipe.

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.

  • The chain planner, as a table

    The lesson’s planner runs in a browser and cannot print. Its formulas are worked out here across six coil thicknesses, with the hole, the wet coil, the length to cut each one and the total clay to roll. It also says two things the web tool never does: the clay to roll barely changes with the link size, and it barely changes with the body either.

  • Both methods, side by side

    Rolled coils in ten numbered steps, and the slab cut method where only half the links have a seam at all. The second one is the structurally safer route and most people have never heard of it.

  • The joint, taken apart

    Seven moves that make a join and four habits that ruin one, with the reason behind each. Pressing two ends together is not joining them, and the guide is clear about where the actual repair happens.

  • Eight failures, each pointing somewhere

    Every way a chain goes wrong, what it is telling you, whether the piece can be saved, and what to change next time. Each one traces back to either the seam or the glaze.

  • A planning sheet and a one page reference

    A sheet for working a chain backwards from the length you want, and a single page holding the two enemies, the three numbers, the joint order, the drying week and the four finishes.

  • A quiz, an answer key and a glossary

    The same questions as the free lesson, with the reasoning behind every answer, and every term the guide uses defined in plain words with what it connects to.

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 Chains with Links That Move” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no trial. This is the same teaching set for paper, so you can take it to the table.

Almost everything in this building gives you a second chance. A chain does not. The moment a link closes around the one before it, it is closed.

So the thing to be good at is not the shape of a link. It is what happens where the two ends meet. Clay pressed against clay comes apart again while it dries, days after you decided you were finished. Clay dragged across from both sides stays one piece.

Make three links before you make thirty. They cost twenty minutes and they answer the only two questions that matter.

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: the teaching in the order you do it, the numbers worked out, the things that go wrong with what to do about each one, workbook pages to fill in, and a quiz with the reasoning behind every answer. This one is number 08.07, in the project guides, and its number never changes.

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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 lesson is the same teaching and it stays free. This is that teaching rebuilt for paper: the chain planner worked out as a printed table, both methods numbered step by step, the joint order and the drying week as lists you tick, all eight failures laid out at once, a planning sheet you fill in, a glossary and the quiz with an answer key. It is for the table, not the sofa.
Do I need a wheel?
No. This is entirely hand building. A flat surface that is not plastic, something to wrap the links around, a knife and a wooden tool will do it, and one of the nicer things about chains is that they can be made almost anywhere with almost nothing.
Is a chain a beginner project?
Nothing in it is hard to do once. What makes it advanced is doing it thirty times without one bad one, in an order you cannot undo, and then getting all thirty through a week of drying and two firings still touching each other. The guide says to build three links first, which takes twenty minutes and tells you everything a thirty link chain would, ten days sooner.
Why do the links come out stiff instead of swinging?
The hole is too small for the coil. There is a floor below which a chain technically articulates and practically does not, and the guide gives the working number instead, with a table of six coil thicknesses and the hole each one needs. It is the one thing that cannot be fixed after the chain is built, which is why it is worked out first.
Can I glaze a chain all over?
Not if you want it to move. Molten glaze welds any two glazed surfaces that touch, and no amount of care changes that. The guide gives four honest finishes instead, including the one most of the chains you admire online actually use, and says which one to point a first chain at.
What if two links fuse anyway?
It happens on a first attempt and the guide tells you to expect it and to build spare links into the length. A fused pair can often be freed by grinding the glass bridge between them, and one of the three lessons it points you at covers that job in full.
How long does one take?
For a first chunky chain, one evening to roll, cut and close everything, then a week to ten days of drying, then the two firings. Call it three weeks of calendar and two evenings of hands. The guide is honest that the drying week is where most chains are lost, not the making.
Can I hang something from a finished chain?
No, and the guide says so twice on purpose. Fired clay is weak in tension and gives no warning at all before it lets go. A ceramic chain carries its own weight and nothing else, and never over a person, a pet or a walkway. There is a whole section on designing around that honestly.
Which clay should I use?
The guide has a table of five bodies with their shrinkage, what each does under a joint and a verdict on each, plus an honest first pick and the one that will give you the best looking chain while punishing every shortcut. A chain is a lot of thin joins drying at slightly different rates, which decides most of it.
What do I get, and how does it arrive?
A PDF, downloadable the moment you buy it, designed for US Letter and fine on A4. Print the whole thing or just the pages you need. Your copy is yours to print as many times as you like for your own use, and the last page carries the short version of the terms.

Bridge every seam, and keep glass off every contact

Two rules and one set of numbers, and you pick up something that moves in every joint. Download it, print the joint order and the drying week, and keep them on the table from the first link to the last.

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