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The Clay Hole University · Trimming, Handles and Drying

How to Properly Dry Your PotteryPrintable pottery guide

A drying plan for the piece in front of you: how to cover it for what you want next, how long it needs under cover and in the open, how to tell it is dry, and what a crack is telling you.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Beginner
  • 29 printable pages
  • 1 video pick
  • 8-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 How to Properly Dry Your Pottery printable guide?

It is the shelf on paper: a five question planner that names the cover and works out the days, the first hour for wheel work, hand building and slab molds, why a cotton sheet and a plastic bag do different jobs, the checks that tell you a piece is dry, ten drying myths answered, and a table that reads a crack. Built to be printed, kept beside the shelf and written in.

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

  • 29printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 1video, with a QR code
  • 14glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For the piece on the shelf

Most of it is decided in the first ten minutes

A crack you find after a firing was very often a crack that was already there. Drying is the step nobody warns you about: you make the thing, you set it on a shelf, and the shelf does the rest while you are at work.

The whole skill is one idea that most people get backwards. The goal is not to dry a piece slowly, it is to dry it evenly, and the bag over it is a tool for making the rim, the walls and the base lose water at the same pace. Cover a piece for what you want to find next time, and most of the rest follows.

The guide puts that in the order you use it: a planner that turns five answers into a cover and a number of days, the first hour for each way of making, and the checks for dry. It also has a log to write in, so the next piece starts from a note instead of a guess.

Look inside

Real pages, for a shelf with a bag on it

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

  • Page 3 of the “How to Properly Dry Your Pottery” 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 well dried piece looks like.
  • Page 4 of the “How to Properly Dry Your Pottery” printable guide: most pottery dies on the shelf, shown with the sample watermark
    Most pottery dies on the shelfThe opening of the lesson, and the five questions the planner asks: how you made it, how big it is, how even the clay is, the time of year, and what you want next time you come in.
  • Page 17 of the “How to Properly Dry Your Pottery” printable guide: is it actually dry?, shown with the sample watermark
    Is it actually dry?Three checks in order of how far to trust them: the color, your cheek and the scale, then the warning about handling bone dry work. The ten myths about drying start below them, each with a verdict.
  • Page 23 of the “How to Properly Dry Your Pottery” printable guide: every piece, and how it dried, shown with the sample watermark
    Every piece, and how it driedA log to write in: how it was made, how you covered it, the days under cover and in the open, and what it looked like. A few rows in and the next piece starts from a note.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

A plan is easier to follow when it holds still

Drying is decided in a few minutes and shows up a week later. Paper suits that, because you make the decision at the shelf and want the answer in front of you.

  • The planner is worked out for you

    Five answers become a cover and a number of days. The multipliers, the days in the open and five worked pieces are on the page, so you do the sum with a pencil instead of remembering it.

  • It holds still

    A page stays where you put it while you lift a piece onto a bat with both hands. It does not lock its screen, and it does not mind slip.

  • A note for next time

    The log has columns for how you covered a piece and how many days it sat under cover and in the open. A week later you have something to compare, not a guess.

  • One page for the shelf

    The one page summary has the four covers, the first hour, the checks for dry, the numbers and what each crack means. It pins up beside the shelf.

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.

  • A planner that was checked

    The free lesson’s planner is a formula. We ran it over every combination of answers and read the same answers back from the live page, and the five worked examples in the guide match it.

  • Makers quoted from their own pages

    Four sentences in the free lesson credited a clay maker with things its own pages do not say. We checked each against the maker’s page and corrected the guide and the lesson.

  • A number that agrees with its rule

    One myth answered “two days” for a piece the studio rule says must sit a week in the open. The guide and the lesson now agree.

  • 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 job on a single sheet: the four covers, the first hour, the checks for dry, the numbers, and what to look at when a crack appears.

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 Properly Dry Your Pottery” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

It is easy to blame the kiln. The kiln is loud and hot and comes with a dramatic story. The shelf is quiet, so it never gets the credit or the blame.

So I would like you to walk away with a question instead of a rule. Before you cover anything, ask what state you want it in when you next see it: still soft, ready to trim, or done.

Another week on a shelf costs you nothing. Skipping it is one of the most expensive mistakes in pottery.

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.

See every printable guide

  • 5guides in your cart1 on us
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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, the planner as tables you can tick and work through, a log to write in, a one page summary, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Do the planner’s numbers apply to my studio?
They are a starting point, not a promise. The lesson was written in a heated building in a high desert, and it says so, and it tells you your own shelf is the real authority. Use the planner to choose a cover and a first guess, then trust the color of the piece over the calendar.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Beginner. Nothing in it needs a skill, only a habit: decide what you want the piece to be next time, cover it for that, and leave it alone.
What do I need besides clay?
A plastic storage bat, a plastic bag the piece fits inside, a cotton sheet if you can use one, good light and a shelf away from doors and vents. The guide lists all of it on the dashboard.
Do I have to use cotton sheets?
No. A plastic bag does the job of holding a piece, and the guide explains what a sheet does that a bag cannot: it slows every part of a piece by the same amount, and you can stack them like a dial. Read the section and decide.
Can this stop my pots cracking?
It cannot promise that, and nothing honest can. It makes cracks less mysterious: what causes each kind, what to change next time, and the checks that tell you a piece is actually dry before it goes near a kiln.
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 log are the two worth having beside 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 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.

Decide what you want, cover it for that, and give it the time

Squeeze the air out to keep it soft, leave a little in to bring it to leather hard, lay the bag loosely over the top to dry it, and give it at least a week in the open before the kiln. The guide keeps those choices in front of you at the shelf.

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Depending on what you are doing, ceramics may involve extreme heat, kilns, electricity, gas, flame, sharp tools, spinning machinery, heavy equipment, pressurized equipment, silica-containing dust, fumes, chemicals, raw materials, stains, oxides, glazes, combustible materials, hot surfaces, breakable objects, and other hazards capable of causing serious injury, illness, property damage, fire, or worse.

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