You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 07.09

The Clay Hole University · Hand Building

How to Use the Wall ExtruderPrintable pottery guide

Soft clay in the top, a perfect coil out the bottom. Fifty identical parts in one evening, from a machine that is mostly a list of decisions you make before you pull.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Beginner
  • 26 printable pages
  • 5 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 Use the Wall Extruder printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “How to Use the Wall Extruder” lesson. A wall extruder is a stainless barrel, a plunger, a long handle and a plate with a hole in it. Push soft clay through the hole and out comes a coil, a ribbon, a handle blank or a hollow tube, dead even along its whole length, in seconds. The guide covers what ours is and what every die does, picking and tightening the die, loading soft clay as one lump with no air, the long smooth pull with a hand underneath to catch it, the hollow dies that make tubes, handles curved while wet, and the cleanup that matters more than it sounds. On paper it adds an extrusion log, a card for the machine, a printed quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

Prefer to read it online first? The “How to Use the Wall Extruder” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 26printable pages, US Letter
  • 7quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 5hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 16glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

Two feelings, and everything else is a list

An extruder has exactly two things in it that no paragraph can hand you: how soft the clay has to be, and what a good pull feels like through the handle. Those come from watching and from doing. Everything else is a decision, and every one of those decisions is better on paper than in your head while you are hanging off a handle.

Which die, which way round, which holes to mask, how tight the screws go, where your other hand goes. Die choice in particular is the part nobody films well, because a camera cannot show you a table of what each plate does. A table can.

Then there is the cleanup, which is the part that makes you popular. Clay dries in the barrel overnight and dried clay in an extruder becomes somebody else’s problem. It is a short list and it belongs where you will see it, not three taps into a page you are not touching.

Look inside

Real pages, for a machine on a wall

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

  • Page 5 of the “How to Use the Wall Extruder” printable guide: the whole thing in six moves, shown with the sample watermark
    The whole thing in six movesThe five minute version up front, with the places each move fails marked.
  • Page 6 of the “How to Use the Wall Extruder” printable guide: what it is, and what every die does, shown with the sample watermark
    What it is, and what every die doesOurs is a North Star four inch. The die table is most of knowing the machine.
  • Page 15 of the “How to Use the Wall Extruder” printable guide: six things that go wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Six things that go wrongEach one with what it is telling you, because a bad extrusion is usually the clay talking.
  • Page 13 of the “How to Use the Wall Extruder” printable guide: the extrusion log, shown with the sample watermark
    The extrusion logOne line per pull: the die, how soft the clay was, and what came out the bottom.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

You are standing at a wall with both hands busy

One hand is on a long handle and the other is cradling something soft as it comes out of a hole. There is no third hand for a phone, and the machine is not next to a bench.

  • The die table, printed

    What every plate does, which way round it goes, and which holes to mask. This is the part a video cannot show you and a page can.

  • Softer than throwing clay

    If it is stiff enough to throw a tall cylinder it is too stiff for a quarter inch hole. One line, and it saves an evening of hanging off the handle.

  • The cleanup list

    Die off, plunger out, every scrap out of the barrel, dies rinsed and back on their hooks. Short, and the difference between a shared tool and a ruined one.

  • A log, because pulls repeat

    The same die and the same softness should give the same coil. A line per pull is how that becomes reliable rather than lucky.

How the guide is built

Built for a machine on a wall, 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 is at the machine, the mistakes that get made first, and what clay at the right softness feels like.

  • The whole machine in six moves, up front

    The five minute version before any detail, with the place each move fails marked.

  • A die table, which is most of knowing the machine

    What every North Star plate does, which way up it goes, and how to mask the openings you are not using.

  • Five steps in full, with tick lists

    Picking the die, loading, the pull, hollow dies and handles, and the cleanup, as things to work through rather than paragraphs to re-read.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Five videos, 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 Use the Wall Extruder” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

The extruder is the fastest way in the building to make the parts every other page asks you to make by hand, and most people are slightly afraid of it because nobody showed them the die table. Showing it 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 07.09, 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, or every printable we sell on one page.

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

What to build with fifty identical parts

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 an extrusion log, a card for the machine, a printed quiz with an answer key, and a glossary.
How soft does the clay have to be?
Softer than throwing clay, and the guide says how to tell. If it is stiff enough to throw a tall cylinder it is too stiff to push through a quarter inch hole.
Why does my coil tear or come out with gaps?
Gaps are trapped air from loading in several lumps instead of one. Tearing is usually clay that is too stiff, or an extrusion left hanging unsupported. The guide covers six failures and what each one is telling you.
Which die do I use?
The guide has a table of what every plate does, which way round it goes, and how to mask the openings you are not using. Die choice is the part videos skip.
Do I need to be strong?
No, and the guide is firm about this: one steady stroke, never your body weight. Forcing a long handle bends plungers and hurts shoulders. If it will not pull, the clay is wrong, not you.
What do I do with it afterwards?
Clean it before it dries, and the guide gives the list. Clay left in a barrel overnight becomes the next member’s problem and it is the one thing that makes a shared machine unpleasant.
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 pull a coil

Wedge something softer than you would throw with, pick a die off the table, load it as one lump, and pull one long smooth stroke with a hand underneath. Write the die and the softness in the log. Then clean it properly, which is most of being welcome back.

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