You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 13.09

The Clay Hole University · Other Ways to Find, Fire, and Form

Pit FiringPrintable pottery guide

The oldest way to fire clay on paper: what makes the colors, the rules before you light anything, a pot built to survive the fire, a loaded pit, fire day hour by hour, and a log for every pot you fire.

$12.505 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Intermediate
  • 30 printable pages
  • 9 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 Pit Firing printable guide?

It is the free “How to Pit Fire Pottery” lesson rebuilt for paper: how smoke and mineral vapor make the colors, the legal and safety rules before you light anything, a pot built to survive, burnishing, a pit loaded in order, fire day hour by hour, four ways to do it and what to do when it goes wrong. Built to be printed, packed in a bag and written in. It is a guide for a firing you do somewhere else, since we do not pit fire at the studio.

Prefer to read it online first? The “How to Pit Fire Pottery” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 30printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 9hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 10glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For anyone who wants to hand a pot to a fire and see what comes back

The fire paints. You prepare.

A pit fire is the one firing where you are not in charge. You prepare carefully, you load thoughtfully, and then the fire decides what color each pot becomes. That is the appeal, and it is also why the preparation matters so much.

The guide gives you that preparation in order: why the colors form, the rules about where and when you can burn, a pot with walls that can take the shock, a polished surface that takes the smoke, a pit loaded layer by layer, and a fire day with the waiting written in.

It also gives you what a web page cannot: two lists you can tick off with a dirty hand, and a log to write in. What you packed around each pot, where it sat in the pit and how it came out will show you what your own pit does.

Look inside

Real pages, for reading before the fire

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

  • Page 3 of the “Pit Firing” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginOne page before anything gets dug: what you will learn, what you would need, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls and what a good result looks like.
  • Page 5 of the “Pit Firing” printable guide: how the colors form, shown with the sample watermark
    How the colors formNothing is painted on. Smoke and mineral vapor settle on a porous pot, and this page explains why a pit is the coolest firing in the whole process.
  • Page 19 of the “Pit Firing” printable guide: when it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    When it goes wrongA pot cracked in half, a pot that blew apart, a gray and boring result: each fault with its usual cause and what to do about it.
  • Page 23 of the “Pit Firing” printable guide: every pot i fired, and how it came out, shown with the sample watermark
    Every pot I fired, and how it came outA log to write in: how you prepared the surface, what went around the pot, where in the pit it sat and how it came out.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

Read it cold, packed in the truck

A pit fire takes a whole day outdoors, with smoke, ash and no good place for a laptop. A page you have already read suits that.

  • The order, where you can find it

    Every step of fire day is on the page in order, with the reason for each. Nothing to scroll with ash on your gloves.

  • Two lists for a dirty hand

    One list to pack by and one for fire day, with a box to tick for each line, so you do not stand at the pit wondering what you forgot.

  • A log for your own pit

    A pit never fires the same way twice. Columns for the surface, what went around the pot, where it sat and how it came out turn a lucky firing into notes you can use.

  • A page stays where you put it

    It does not lock its screen and it does not need a signal. You can read it the night before and the order is already in your head on the day.

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.

  • Safety first, and plainly

    The guide says to stay out of the smoke, never burn treated or painted wood, never use galvanized steel, and keep someone with the fire the whole time it is alive.

  • Decorative, and plainly so

    A pit fired pot is porous, unglazed and coated in carbon. The guide says it is not food safe and not watertight, and that sealing it does not change that.

  • A guide for a firing elsewhere

    We do not pit fire at the studio, and the guide says so. It is written for a firing you do somewhere else, and points to our raku workshops as the nearest thing we run.

  • Video notes that say what the videos say

    Every video is another potter’s work, printed with its own QR code. Each note claims no more than the video’s own description and chapter list show.

  • 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 “How to Pit Fire Pottery” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

A pit fire is the one firing where you are not in charge. You prepare carefully, you load thoughtfully, and then you hand the whole thing to a fire that does not care what you had in mind.

If you want to see what a fire can do to a pot with a team beside you, come and ask us about raku.

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
  • 9guides in your cart2 on us
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, two lists for pack day and fire day, a log to write in, a one page summary, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Can I pit fire at The Clay Hole?
No. We do not pit fire at the studio and the guide says so plainly. It is written for a firing you do somewhere else. The nearest thing we run is raku, and the guide points to it.
Does it cover the rules for where I live?
It describes Utah’s open burning and air quality rules as the lesson does, and tells you to confirm the current window and air quality action with your local fire authority before every firing. Other places have their own rules.
Is a pit fired pot food safe?
No. It is porous, unglazed and coated in carbon and mineral residue, so it is decorative only and not watertight. Sealing it with wax or sealer does not change that, and the guide says so.
Does it replace being shown how by somebody?
No. It teaches the order and the preparation, with the risks stated plainly. A pit fire is a real fire with real smoke, so the guide tells you to keep someone with it the whole time.
Do I have to bisque first?
You do not have to, but the guide recommends it for a first firing, because bisqued pots survive at a much higher rate. It also says what raw greenware gives you and what it costs.
Are the videos yours?
No. Each one is another potter’s work. The guide prints each with its own QR code, and nothing in the guide depends on watching them.
Do I need to be a member of The Clay Hole to use it?
No. The guide teaches the preparation and the order of the steps for anyone. Where a line is only ours, such as what we run at the studio, the guide says so.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Intermediate. It helps to have made and fired a few pieces first, and 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 two checklists, the one page summary and the pot log are the pages worth having with you. They are numbered pages like any other, so you can print those and leave the rest on a screen.
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 read 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.

The fire paints. You prepare.

Build the pot, learn the order, and keep someone with the fire. The guide keeps every step in front of you before you light it.

Get the guide · $12.50

The Clay Hole University Printable Guide Terms

Licensing, safety, digital delivery, and refund terms

Your copy is yours. The guide is not.

Your purchase gives one individual purchaser a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license for personal use only. You may download the guide to your own devices, print copies for your own use, write all over them, spill clay water on them, replace a coffee-damaged copy, and generally use the heck out of what you bought.

What you may not do is distribute the guide to anyone else, whether you charge for it or not.

That means you may not share, forward, email, upload, post, publish, copy, reproduce, resell, sublicense, redistribute, or otherwise provide the guide, or any substantial portion of it, to another person. You may not place it in a shared drive, group chat, membership library, online community, file-sharing service, studio resource folder, classroom packet, employee handbook, course, workshop, or other shared collection. You may not make copies for students, members, employees, friends, classes, studios, schools, groups, or organizations.

You may not remove or obscure copyright notices, watermarks, attribution, or other ownership information, or sell, republish, or commercially exploit modified or derivative versions of the guide.

Purchasing the guide does not transfer ownership of its copyrighted text, photographs, illustrations, graphics, layouts, worksheets, or other original content. Those rights remain with The Clay Hole and their respective rights holders. Copyright law protects the expression contained in these guides, while ideas, methods, techniques, and processes may have different legal treatment.

If you would like to use one of our guides with a class, studio, school, team, or other group, contact The Clay Hole about permission or group licensing. Please do not make twenty copies and call it manifesting.

Pottery is wonderfully unpredictable. It also carries real risk.

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.

You are responsible for determining whether any technique, material, combination, firing schedule, tool, or process described in a guide is appropriate and safe for your specific circumstances before using it.

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.

Ceramics also refuses to sign contracts promising beautiful results. Colors change. Glazes move. Kilns have opinions. Pots crack. Materials interact unexpectedly. Manufacturers reformulate products. Equipment behaves differently. The Clay Hole does not guarantee any particular aesthetic, functional, firing, glazing, structural, or other result.

By choosing to use the information in a guide, you accept responsibility for your own materials, equipment, workspace, safety decisions, testing, methods, and results. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, The Clay Hole and its owners, employees, contributors, and affiliates are not responsible for injury, illness, property damage, lost work, failed projects, kiln or equipment damage, financial loss, or other loss arising from or related to your use of, or reliance upon, the guide.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits any right or liability that applicable law does not allow us to exclude or limit.

Digital guides, immediate delivery, and refunds

These are digital products delivered electronically and made available for use immediately after purchase. Unlike a physical book, a downloaded digital file cannot meaningfully be returned to us once it has been delivered.

By completing your purchase and requesting immediate access to the guide, you consent to digital delivery beginning immediately. Where applicable law provides a cancellation or withdrawal period for digital content, you acknowledge that beginning the download, access, or delivery of the digital content may cause that cancellation or withdrawal right to end.

Once access to or delivery of the purchased digital guide has begun, the purchase is final and non-refundable except where a refund, replacement, cancellation, or other remedy is required by applicable law.

If the file you receive is corrupted, inaccessible, materially different from what was described, or there is a genuine technical problem with delivery, please contact us. We would much rather fix the problem than leave you staring angrily at a PDF that refuses to PDF.

Terms version 2026-09-19b