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The Clay Hole University · Project Guides

Lidded Jars with a GalleryPrintable pottery guide

The whole lidded jar, in the order you make it: the rim you leave heavy on purpose, the ledge you cut in it, the number you measure before the pot leaves the wheel, and the ten days after that decide whether the lid still fits.

$10.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Advanced
  • 32 printable pages
  • 6 video picks
  • 6-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 Lidded Jars with a Gallery printable guide?

It is the lidded jar on paper: what a gallery is and why it can only be cut while the pot is wet and turning, how to size the opening, starting weights for four common jars, the eight throwing steps, three ways to cut the ledge, how to measure the collar with calipers, the lid in seven steps, three kinds of knob, trimming the lid on its own jar, and how to keep the pair together through drying, bisque and glaze. Built to be printed, written in and kept by the wheel across the three visits a jar takes.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Lidded Jars with a Gallery” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 32printable pages, US Letter
  • 6quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 6hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 21glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For the pot that has to agree with something

The ledge takes a few minutes. The fit takes ten days

A mug is finished when you say it is. A jar with a lid is not, because the lid is a second pot that has to match the first one exactly, after both of them have dried, been fired and shrunk. Most of the throwing is throwing you already know.

What is new is the order. The gallery is cut from clay you left behind on purpose while the pot was still spinning, so it cannot be added later. The number that decides whether the lid fits is taken with calipers before the pot comes off the wheel. And then the jar and its lid have to get through a week of drying together, which is a stretch nobody films.

That order is what this guide is for. It puts the decisions where you will be standing when you make them, and it gives the waiting a list to come back to.

Look inside

Real pages, for a bench with calipers on it

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

  • Page 3 of the “Lidded Jars with a Gallery” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginSix boxes on one page: what you will learn, what to have on the bench, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls, what success looks like and how to practice. Read it before you throw and again before you glaze.
  • Page 4 of the “Lidded Jars with a Gallery” printable guide: the anatomy of a gallery, shown with the sample watermark
    The anatomy of a galleryThe jar cut in half, with seven numbered parts and the key beside the drawing rather than a page away from it. It is the picture to keep in your head while you cut the ledge.
  • Page 18 of the “Lidded Jars with a Gallery” printable guide: scan codes, then what goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Scan codes, then what goes wrongEvery video card carries a scan code that goes straight to the video, and under them the troubleshooting begins: find the symptom, read the cause. Nearly every one was decided at the wheel, days before it showed.
  • Page 25 of the “Lidded Jars with a Gallery” printable guide: every jar, and the number you measured, shown with the sample watermark
    Every jar, and the number you measuredA log to write in: the clay you used for the body and the lid, the number you took at the collar, how many days it took to dry and what actually happened. Two rows in and the second jar starts from a number instead of a memory.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

You will be reading it with slip on your hands

A lidded jar is made in short bursts at the wheel with days of waiting between them. Paper suits both.

  • It holds still

    A page stays where you left it while you cut a ledge with both hands, and it does not time out or need slip wiped off the screen.

  • Ten days in the middle

    The fit is settled somewhere in the week and a half after you wire the lid off, with nobody watching. A list to come back to beats a video you would have to rewatch to find the one line about the plastic.

  • A number to write down

    The measurement that matters is taken with calipers, at one place, while the pot is wet. The guide has a page for it, beside how long the pair took to dry.

  • It stays by the bench

    The plan across three visits belongs next to the wheel, and the one page summary belongs above the drying shelf, because that is where the question actually gets asked.

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 table, run again

    The lid is roughly a quarter of the body in every row of the jar table, as the text says. We recomputed each one before it went in.

  • Sanded wet, every time

    The lesson told you to smooth a high spot on bisque dry. The guide says wet sandpaper or a wet sanding sponge, never dry, because dry sanding bisque puts silica dust in the air. The free lesson has been corrected too.

  • The kiln rule, put back

    The glazing list now says what the studio has always said: a kiln cookie or a glaze catcher goes under the pair, every time, with no exceptions.

  • A food jar, done properly

    Sugar, coffee and cookie jars hold food, so the guide says the glaze inside has to be one its maker rates for that, and points you to the studio’s food safe glaze lookup.

  • A quiz that explains itself

    Six questions, 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.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Lidded Jars with a Gallery” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

Most of what I teach at the wheel is about feel. This is the one job where I would ask you to trust a number over your hands.

The jar and its lid have to get through a week of drying as a pair, then two firings, and the only thing you can do about any of it is be dull and consistent.

When they come out of the kiln, bring the good ones and the bad ones. The bad ones are more use to me.

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.

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Sits next to

Three guides 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 cross-section with its key beside it, numbered steps for the jar and the lid, a plan for the three visits with a tick box for every item, a jar log to write in, a one page summary, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Do I need a wheel?
Yes. This is a wheel guide: the jar, the lid and the closed form route are all thrown. The ledge is cut with your fingers or a small tool while the pot is still spinning, which is the reason it cannot be added later.
Do I need calipers?
The measuring depends on them. You read the inside face of the collar with one pair, write the number down and check the lid against it. The guide explains how to read them, and the lids lesson it points to covers what to do if you only own a single ended pair.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Advanced, and not because anything in it is a new hand skill. The decision that matters is made in wet clay in the first few minutes and cannot be revisited, and two pieces have to agree with each other across drying and two firings. If you can throw a cylinder, belly it out and collar the top in, you have the hands for it, and the guide suggests planning on the first two being practice.
Can I use it for a jar that holds food?
The guide tells you to glaze the inside of the jar and the lid, and to use a glaze its maker rates for ware that holds food. It points you to The Clay Hole’s food safe glaze lookup to find which ones those are. The glaze is what decides whether a jar is fit for food, so the guide does not promise it for you.
Will it work with my kiln?
The teaching about the ledge, the measuring and the drying does not depend on your kiln. The firing numbers are given as ours and dated: cone 05 for the bisque and cone 5½ for the glaze, meaning cone 5 with a twelve minute hold. Check them against what you fire to.
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. The text, the tables and the tick boxes are black on white, and the pages that matter most at the wheel, the plan and the one page summary, read the same without color.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The plan, the one page summary and the jar log are the three worth having by the wheel. 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.

Cut the ledge in the first few minutes. Then be dull for ten days

Leave the rim heavy, take the number before the pot comes off the wheel, and keep the pair together from the moment you wire the lid off. Do those three and the rest is throwing you already know. Skip any of them and no amount of skill later will make the lid fit, which is why this one is worth reading before you start rather than after the first one rocks.

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