You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 05.01

The Clay Hole University · The Pottery Wheel

How to Throw on the Pottery WheelPrintable pottery guide

The whole wheel on paper: ten things that are true for every thrower, twelve moves from a wedged lump to a cylinder off the wheel, and twenty-one fails with what actually caused each one. Then forty cylinders to tick off, one box at a time.

$10.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Beginner
  • 56 printable pages
  • 1 video pick
  • 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 printable edition of How to Throw on the Pottery Wheel?

It is the free lesson of the same name, rebuilt as a workbook. It starts with ten things that are true no matter whose hands are on the clay, the six things to get right before you sit down, and a chooser for The Clay Hole’s eight clays as of September 2026. Then the twelve moves with two cross-section drawings, three skill levels with what to practice and what to ignore at each, Dan’s eleven tips and four sayings, a hundred things throwers tell each other, twenty-one fails with their causes, nine myths, and the forty cylinder exercise. On paper it adds the forty cylinder log, a one-page wheel card, a quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

Prefer to read it online first? “How to Throw on the Pottery Wheel” is free to read, and always will be.

  • 56printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 1video, with a QR code
  • 16glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

A thousand ways to throw, and ten that never change

Watch ten potters at the wheel and you will see ten grips, ten postures and ten orders of operations. That is why wheel advice seems to contradict itself so often. Most of it is somebody describing their own body.

Underneath all of it sit ten things that are true for everyone who has ever sat down at a wheel: centered comes first, you move clay and never remove it, water is a lubricant rather than an ingredient, fast wheel and slow hands. Learn those and the conflicting tips sort themselves into physics and preference.

Then comes the part nobody hands a beginner: a name for what just went wrong. Twenty-one common fails, each with its most likely cause first and the others worth checking, so a collapsed wall becomes a reason you can say out loud and fix on the next lump.

Look inside

Real pages, built for wet hands

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

  • Page 10 of the “How to Throw on the Pottery Wheel” printable guide: which clay to throw, shown with the sample watermark
    Which clay to throwThe first four of The Clay Hole’s eight clays, as of September 2026, sorted by how much they forgive, with what each one does on the wheel and the trade.
  • Page 13 of the “How to Throw on the Pottery Wheel” printable guide: the twelve moves, shown with the sample watermark
    The twelve movesA labeled cross-section of a cylinder from rim to wheel head, including how thick to leave the floor, and then move one: wedge.
  • Page 34 of the “How to Throw on the Pottery Wheel” printable guide: twenty-one fails, shown with the sample watermark
    Twenty-one failsThe first three, while you are centering: the most likely cause first, then what else to check.
  • Page 43 of the “How to Throw on the Pottery Wheel” printable guide: the forty cylinder log, shown with the sample watermark
    The forty cylinder logEight sessions of five boxes, a yes or no for cutting one open, measuring the floor and forming in four pulls, and three things to write down at the end.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

Clay on your hands, the page within reach

Nobody wakes up a phone with slip to the wrists. The pages you need in the middle of a session belong where you can read them without washing up first.

  • The wheel card

    The ten truths, the twelve moves, the one detail that makes a pull work, and the speeds, on a single page beside the splash pan.

  • The forty cylinder log

    One row a session and a box for every cylinder, with a yes or no for cutting one open, measuring the floor and getting the form in four pulls.

  • Name the fail, then fix it

    Twenty-one fails grouped by when they happen: while you are centering, while you are opening and pulling, and after the pot leaves the wheel.

  • All nine milestones at once

    Online, the forty cylinders reveal a new note as you go. On paper all nine print word for word, with a column to date the day you reach each one.

How the guide is built

Built for your first months at the wheel, and the ones after

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

  • A learning dashboard before page one

    What you will learn, what you will need, the pitfalls that cost beginners the most lumps, and what success actually feels like under your hands.

  • Truths first, preferences second

    Ten things that are true for everyone, then twelve that are genuinely just preference, so you know which advice is physics and which is somebody’s habit.

  • Twelve moves, drawn in cross-section

    From wedge to wire off, each with the thing to watch for, plus two drawings: the parts of a cylinder, and exactly where your hands sit in a pull.

  • Three levels, with the cutoffs spelled out

    What to practice and what to deliberately ignore at each one, with the lines drawn around what you can do rather than how long you have been doing it.

  • Dan, a hundred voices and nine myths

    Dan’s eleven tips and the four things he says so often members finish them for him, a hundred things throwers tell each other in six groups, and nine myths that cost beginners real time.

  • Codes that keep working

    Every QR code points at a short Clay Hole address, so a printed copy keeps working when a video or a lesson moves.

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 Throw on the Pottery Wheel” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Show me a thousand wheel throwers and I will show you a thousand ways to throw. What nobody writes down properly is the handful of things that are true for all of them, and a name for every way it goes wrong. So we wrote them down. When a pot collapses, you should have a cause to say out loud instead of a feeling about yourself. The rest is hours.

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 05.01, the first guide in The Pottery Wheel, and the one the rest of that section builds on. 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, or every printable we sell on one page.

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

One part of the wheel at a time, in more depth

These lessons take a single part of this guide further: the floor, the rib, and the foot you trim once centering stops being a coin flip. 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 the forty cylinder log, a one-page wheel card, all nine milestone notes on one table with a column for dates, a printed quiz with an answer key, and a glossary, all laid out to print cleanly.
Can a guide actually teach me to throw?
Not on its own, and it says so plainly at the end. What it does is make the hours count for more: you know what to practice, what to ignore for now, and what caused the pot you just lost. Your hands still need the time. The guide is honest about that too: two to three months to get reasonably proficient is normal, and years to master.
I have never touched a wheel. Is it too early?
It is the right time. It is written for your first months, starting with a first day spent simply playing with the clay, and it tells you what to leave alone until centering stops being the problem.
I have been throwing for a while. Is there anything in it for me?
Yes. The intermediate and advanced lists cover throwing to a target, fewer pulls, sets that belong together, sectional throwing, lids that fit, and one form for months. The twenty-one fails and the habit of naming the cause out loud are useful at every level.
What causes the S-shaped crack in the bottom of my pots?
Usually uneven drying: a floor much thicker than the walls, or water left standing in the base, is still shrinking after the walls have finished, and it gets pulled apart. The guide puts that cause first. It still has you compress the floor right after opening, because potters still argue about how much that matters for an S-crack, and it only takes eight seconds.
How thick should the floor be?
About the same thickness as the base of the wall, plus about a quarter inch if you will trim a foot ring into it. The guide shows how to measure it with a needle tool before you pull, while you can still fix it.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes. The truths, the moves and the fails hold on any wheel. The clay chooser describes the eight clays The Clay Hole carried as of September 2026 and is labeled as ours, but the reasons behind each pick, such as grog, shrinkage and how smooth a body is, carry over to whatever your own studio sells.
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: the drawings are labeled with numbers, and we checked that every QR code still scans from a soft grayscale home print.
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.

Fast wheel, slow hands, forty cylinders.

Print it, keep the wheel card by the splash pan, and tick the first box on the log after your next session.

Get the printable · $10.00

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We work hard to make The Clay Hole University accurate, useful, practical, and ridiculously thorough. But pottery is a hands-on craft involving countless variables that no written guide can completely control or anticipate.

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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Terms version 2026-09-19b