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The Clay Hole University · Glazing

Mixing Your Own Glazes: What It Actually InvolvesPrintable pottery guide

Deciding whether to mix your own glazes, on paper: what a glaze is made of, how to read a recipe, what mixing costs in equipment and lungs, why the test tile comes first, and a log for every batch.

$10.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Intermediate
  • 23 printable pages
  • 5 video picks
  • 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 Mixing Your Own Glazes: What It Actually Involves printable guide?

It is the free “Mixing Your Own Glazes: What It Actually Involves” lesson rebuilt for paper: the three jobs in every glaze, how a recipe reads and why its cone comes first, the six things a garage needs, the respirator rule, testing on a tile before a pot, six ways it goes wrong, and five videos worth watching before you buy a bag of anything. Built to be printed, kept beside the bucket and written in.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Mixing Your Own Glazes: What It Actually Involves” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 23printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 5hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 14glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For anyone wondering whether to go down the rabbit hole

Decide before you buy the bag.

Mixing your own glazes is one of the deepest parts of the craft, and one of the easiest to start badly. A scale, a sieve, a bucket and a respirator look like the entry fee. The real fee is knowing what you are getting into.

The guide is a map, not a recipe book. What a glaze is, how a recipe reads, what mixing involves, how a tile tells you what the glaze did, and the six things that go wrong first, with what to do about each. It is honest about the dust, the garage and the waiting.

It also gives you something a web page cannot: a log to write in. The recipe and its cone, the water it took, what the tile did in the kiln and the one change you would make. After a few batches your drawer of tiles is the glaze notebook.

Look inside

Real pages, for beside the bucket

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

  • Page 3 of the “Mixing Your Own Glazes: What It Actually Involves” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginOne page before any bag opens: what you will learn, what you would need, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls, and what a good result looks like.
  • Page 6 of the “Mixing Your Own Glazes: What It Actually Involves” printable guide: what a glaze is, shown with the sample watermark
    What a glaze isThe tools a garage needs, and the three jobs in every glaze: glass, flux and alumina.
  • Page 8 of the “Mixing Your Own Glazes: What It Actually Involves” printable guide: mixing, safely, shown with the sample watermark
    Mixing, safelyThe respirator rule, weighing over a damp towel, sieving twice, and the tick list that keeps the steps in order.
  • Page 16 of the “Mixing Your Own Glazes: What It Actually Involves” printable guide: every batch, and what the tile said, shown with the sample watermark
    Every batch, and what the tile saidA log to write in: the recipe and cone, the water, what the tile did and the one change.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

A checklist and a log are things you keep beside you

Mixing a glaze happens at a bench with a bag in your hand. Paper suits that.

  • The rules where you can see them

    The respirator rule, the order of the steps and the tick lists sit on pages you can pin up beside the bucket.

  • A reason for every rule

    Each warning comes with the reason behind it: why dry glaze dust never leaves the lungs, why a recipe has a cone, why a tile comes before a pot.

  • A log for your own batches

    Columns for the recipe, the water, what the tile did and the one change. A few batches of notes beat a memory of what you did.

  • It does not mind a dusty bench

    A page stays where you put it. It does not lock its screen, and you can wipe it down with the rest of the bench.

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.

  • Read against the studio’s own rules

    We checked the lesson against The Clay Hole’s rules and our other lessons. Where the lesson was out of step, the guide now says what those pages say.

  • Safer wording on two jobs

    Grinding a glaze off a shelf is now done wet, with a respirator on, and cadmium and chrome stains carry their heat limit.

  • Plainer promises about food

    A glaze you mix yourself has no maker’s food rating. The guide says so, and points to our Food Safe Lookup for the jars on our wall.

  • Video notes that say what the video shows

    Each of the five videos has a note checked against its description and chapter list, so the guide promises only what a video covers.

  • 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 page 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 “Mixing Your Own Glazes: What It Actually Involves” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

People ask us all the time whether they should mix their own glazes. It is a fair question, and it is a deep hole.

And if you read this and decide the glaze wall is the better deal, that is the guide working too.

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, a log to write in, a one page summary, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Does it teach me recipes or how to mix?
No, and it says so. It is a map of what mixing involves so you can decide whether it is for you. We do not teach recipes or mixing, and nothing in it happens in the studio building.
Is this only for people who work at The Clay Hole?
No. Silica, flux and alumina do the same jobs in any garage. Where a rule is only ours, such as what happens if you bring a home mixed glaze to fire, the guide says so, so you can tell a Clay Hole rule from a fact of the craft.
Will it tell me whether a homemade glaze is food safe?
It tells you that a glaze you mix yourself has no maker’s food rating, so it stays off anything used for food unless you know better. For the jars on our wall, it points you to our Food Safe Lookup.
Do I need to be a member to use it?
You do not need to be a member to read it. If you ever want to fire a home mixed glaze here, the guide explains the conversation to have with the studio team first.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Intermediate. It helps to have glazed and fired a few pieces first, because the guide assumes you know what a glaze does on a pot. The glossary fills in the words.
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 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 batch log are the two worth having beside the bucket. They are numbered pages like any other, so you can print those and leave the rest on a screen.
Do the videos work on paper?
Each video has a short note and a code that takes you straight to it, so you can scan it from the page.
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 bench 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.

Read the map, then decide

Know the three jobs, check the cone, put the respirator on first and test on a tile. The guide keeps the whole decision in front of you at the bench.

Get the guide · $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.

These guides are provided for general educational and informational purposes. They are not a substitute for hands-on training, competent supervision, your studio’s safety procedures, applicable laws or codes, Safety Data Sheets, or the instructions and warnings supplied by the manufacturers of your clay, glaze, chemicals, tools, kilns, equipment, protective gear, or other materials.

Studios, kilns, clay bodies, glazes, firing schedules, electrical systems, ventilation systems, equipment, environmental conditions, application thicknesses, material formulations, and individual techniques vary enormously. Something that works beautifully in one situation may fail spectacularly in another. That is part of pottery. Occasionally, it is a very expensive part of pottery.

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Use appropriate protective equipment. Use adequate ventilation and dust control. Read manufacturer instructions and Safety Data Sheets. Follow your studio’s rules. Obtain qualified instruction when a process or piece of equipment requires it. Test materials and techniques before committing important work to them. If you do not understand how to perform something safely, do not proceed until you do.

Never assume that a ceramic surface, glaze, clay body, firing method, finished vessel, repair, decoration, or other result is food-safe, microwave-safe, dishwasher-safe, oven-safe, structurally sound, chemically stable, or suitable for any particular purpose solely because it appears in or is discussed in one of our guides. Verify suitability independently when it matters.

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Terms version 2026-09-19b