You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 07.04

The Clay Hole University · Hand Building

How to Use Slab Molds, Step by StepPrintable pottery guide

The walk-along version: twelve steps in the order you will actually do them, from picking the mold off the shelf to putting it back, with a tick at every one.

$10.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Beginner
  • 26 printable pages
  • 1 video pick
  • 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 Use Slab Molds, Step by Step printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “How to Use Slab Molds, Step by Step” lesson. This is the one you open at the table and work down. Five parts, twelve numbered steps, in the order the work happens: setting up before any clay is cut, the two numbers to work out before you cut anything, rolling and trimming the slab, draping it, cutting the flaps, pressing it onto the form and trimming the edge, then smoothing, texturing, signing, drying it on the mold and putting everything away. On paper it adds a slab mold log, the twelve steps on one card, a printed quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

Prefer to read it online first? The “How to Use Slab Molds, Step by Step” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 26printable pages, US Letter
  • 7quiz 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

You are following twelve steps with clay on both hands

This is not a guide you read and then go and do. It is a guide you work down, one step at a time, with the page propped up beside the mold. That is the whole design: five parts, twelve numbered steps, a tick beside each one, in the order the work actually happens.

Almost every disappointing piece was decided in three steps near the beginning, long before it looked wrong. Do the arithmetic before you cut. Get the block under a certain thickness. Roll the slab properly. None of those is exciting and all three are on one page you can glance at.

A screen is the wrong object for this. It sleeps, it needs a clean finger, and it will not hold your place between step seven and step eight while you are carrying a draped slab across a room.

Look inside

Real pages, for a table and a mold

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

  • Page 7 of the “How to Use Slab Molds, Step by Step” printable guide: getting the slab right, shown with the sample watermark
    Getting the slab rightThe three steps that decide the piece before it ever touches the mold: the arithmetic, the block, the roll.
  • Page 11 of the “How to Use Slab Molds, Step by Step” printable guide: onto the slab mold, shown with the sample watermark
    Onto the slab moldTrim it round, carry it over, drape it, cut the big flaps off. Slow hands from here.
  • Page 17 of the “How to Use Slab Molds, Step by Step” printable guide: drying, finishing, putting away, shown with the sample watermark
    Drying, finishing, putting awayDry it on the mold, release it, finish the rim, and put the mold back the way you found it.
  • Page 14 of the “How to Use Slab Molds, Step by Step” printable guide: the slab mold log, shown with the sample watermark
    The slab mold logOne line per piece: the mold, the slab thickness and what came out, so the good ones are repeatable.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

It is a walk-along, and a screen keeps going to sleep

Every other guide in the series is something to read. This one is something to follow, step by step, at a table, while your hands are wet.

  • Twelve ticks, in order

    Put the page down, do the step, tick it, pick the page back up. It keeps your place, which is exactly what a sleeping screen will not do.

  • The two numbers come before the cut

    Work them out once, printed, at the start. Getting them wrong is the most common reason a finished piece disappoints.

  • It follows our own video exactly

    Same order, same steps. So you can watch it once and then work down the page without translating between the two.

  • A log, because molds repeat

    The same mold and the same thickness should give you the same piece. A line per attempt is how that becomes true rather than lucky.

How the guide is built

Built to be followed, not read

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 is at your station, the mistakes that get made first, and what a good piece off a mold actually looks like.

  • Five parts, twelve numbered steps

    In the order you will actually do them, from picking the mold off the shelf to putting it back on it.

  • A tick beside every step

    So the page holds your place while both hands are busy, which is the entire reason this guide exists on paper.

  • The arithmetic before the cut

    The two numbers to work out before any clay is cut, printed, because almost every disappointing piece was decided right there.

  • A video you can reach from a printed page

    Our own walk-through, in the same order as the steps, with 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 Use Slab Molds, Step by Step” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Slab molds are the fastest way in this building to make something that looks like you know what you are doing, and they are also the easiest thing to get slightly wrong in the first three steps. Walking somebody through it properly costs nothing, 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 07.04, in the hand building section, alongside pinching, coiling and slab work. The number never changes and never gets reused, so a shelf of them stays in order.

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

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Where this leads

What to make once the first one comes off clean

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 tick beside every step so the page holds your place, a slab mold log, the twelve steps on one card, a printed quiz with an answer key, and a glossary.
Do I need a slab roller?
It helps and it is not required. The guide covers rolling the slab either way, and says what changes when you are doing it with a rolling pin.
How thick should the slab be?
The guide gives the two numbers to settle before you cut anything, with the reasoning, because almost every disappointing piece was decided in those steps.
Why does my piece crack or warp coming off the mold?
Usually drying, and usually taken off too early. The guide has drying on the mold as its own step and says when to release it.
Do I need my own mold?
Not if you are here. The guide is written around picking a mold off the shelf and putting it back, and it works just as well with a dish or a mold of your own.
Is this too basic if I already hand build?
If your pieces already come off clean every time, probably. If one in three disappoints you, the cause is almost certainly in part two and this walks you through it.
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.

Print it, and go and pick a mold

Take it to the table, work down from step one, and tick each one as you go. Do the arithmetic before you cut, dry it on the mold, and write the thickness in the log. The second piece off the same mold should be the same piece.

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