You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 08.14

The Clay Hole University · Project Guides

Planters with an Attached Drip TrayPrintable pottery guide

The whole planter, in the order you build it: the half inch that decides whether the water goes anywhere, three ways to make one, and the week of drying that keeps the corner from cracking.

$10.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Intermediate
  • 31 printable pages
  • 7 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 Planters with an Attached Drip Tray printable guide?

It is the planter on paper: why the drainage holes go through the wall and never the bottom, the half inch step and how to check it with a needle tool, three ways to build one, a numbers table for a four, six and eight inch planter, how to dry the fast half and the slow half together, and the four ways glaze ruins one. Built to be printed, written in and kept on the bench for the week the drying takes.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Planters with an Attached Drip Tray” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 31printable pages, US Letter
  • 6quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 7hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 21glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For the pot that has to look after its own water

Nobody makes a bad planter. They make a bad decision about the water

Throwing the pot is the part everybody is confident about. The tray is the part nobody thinks about until the plant is in it and there is a puddle under the pot.

A saucer you can lift has one job, and you do it without noticing: you pour it out. Attach the saucer and that job is gone, so the water has to sit somewhere lower than the soil, where you can see it and reach it with a sponge. Whether it does is settled by half an inch of clay, measured in the first few minutes of the throw.

That measurement, the drains that go through the wall, and the week of drying that keeps the inside corner from cracking are the whole difference between a planter and a very heavy ornament. Everything else is ordinary throwing.

Look inside

Real pages, for a bench with a needle tool on it

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

  • Page 3 of the “Planters with an Attached Drip Tray” 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 7 of the “Planters with an Attached Drip Tray” printable guide: the cross-section, shown with the sample watermark
    The cross-sectionThe whole planter cut in half, with six numbered parts and the key beside the drawing rather than underneath it. It says plainly that it is a sketch, and the real proportions are in the numbers table.
  • Page 19 of the “Planters with an Attached Drip Tray” printable guide: nine ways it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Nine ways it goes wrongFind the symptom, read the cause. Nearly every one was decided at the wheel, days before it showed, which is the annoying part and also the useful part.
  • Page 24 of the “Planters with an Attached Drip Tray” printable guide: every planter, and the step you set, shown with the sample watermark
    Every planter, and the step you setA log to write in: the route, the size, the step you set, how many days it took to dry and what actually happened. Two rows in and the second planter 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 looking at it with a wet hand

A planter with a tray gets decided in short bursts at the wheel, with days of waiting in between. Paper suits both.

  • It holds still

    A page stays exactly where you left it while you rib a floor with both hands. It does not time out, and it does not need slip wiped off the screen.

  • A week in the middle

    The drying takes about a week and the corner is the thing to watch. Nobody rewatches a sixteen minute video to remember what to do with the plastic. They come back to a list.

  • A number to write down

    The step is one measurement you set with a needle tool. The guide has a page to put it on, next to how long the planter took to dry.

  • It pins up

    The checklist belongs beside the wheel and the drying rules belong above the 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 numbers, run again

    The water each planter size holds was recomputed from the tray and planter sizes in the table, and the moat widths follow from the tray diameters. All of it agrees.

  • A drawing that says what it is

    The lesson’s cross-section called itself drawn to scale. Measured, it is a sketch, so the guide says so and points you at the numbers table for the real proportions.

  • The kiln rule, put back

    The glazing list now says what the studio has always said about a wide flat foot: it goes on a glaze catcher or a kiln cookie, every time.

  • Written for any studio

    Our cone numbers, our clay and our glazes are named as ours and dated, so a reader working somewhere else knows which parts are a Clay Hole fact and which are a rule of the craft.

  • 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 “Planters with an Attached Drip Tray” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

I have lost count of the planters that come back to the bench with a plant in them and a puddle under them. Nobody made a bad pot.

It is not a throwing problem. It is a plumbing problem, and plumbing gets settled with a measurement, not with skill.

Make a small one first, live with it for a month, and the big one will still be there.

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, or every printable we sell on one page.

  • 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, the cross-section with its key beside it, a numbered step list for each route, a checklist for the wheel, a planter 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?
Not for all of it. The third route is built entirely from slabs with a rolling pin or a slab roller, and it has its own section with the seams and warnings that go with it. The other two routes are thrown, and all three share the same measurements.
Do I need a bat?
For the thrown routes, yes, and the guide is blunt about why. The finished piece is a wide thin flange that cannot be wired off the wheel head and slid without tearing or warping, so it is thrown on a bat and stays on it until it is dry.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Intermediate, and not because anything in it is a new hand skill. The decision that matters is made in wet clay, early, and cannot be revisited, and a wide flat tray is about the most crack-prone shape you can throw. If you can center, open and pull a wall, you can make this.
Can I use it for a planter that lives outside?
The guide’s honest answer is that this is an indoor object. An open patio lets rain fill a moat that has no way to empty itself, and a moat that freezes will split the tray. A covered porch is fine, and the guide says what to do before the first hard freeze.
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. It is designed to stay readable in grayscale, and the pages that matter most at the wheel, the checklist and the one page summary, were checked that way on purpose.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The checklist, the one page summary and the planter 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.

Set the step first, and the rest is throwing

Get the half inch right, put the drains through the wall, and give the corner a week. Do those three and the rest is ordinary throwing. Get any of them wrong and no amount of skill at the wheel will save it, which is why this one is worth reading before you cut into the mound rather than after.

Get the guide · $10.00

The Clay Hole University Printable Guide Terms

Licensing, safety, digital delivery, and refund terms for printable guides and paper templates

Your copy is yours. The work behind it is not.

These terms cover every printable guide and every paper template from The Clay Hole. In this section, "product" means the guide or template you bought, including its PDF file and everything in it. The rules below apply to both. Paper templates add one permission, in the next section, and nothing else in that section loosens anything here.

Your purchase gives one individual purchaser a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license for personal use only. You may download the product 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 product 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 product, or any substantial portion of it, to another person. That includes passing it on as a photo, scan, screenshot, tracing, printout, or recreation. 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 product, including patterns, outlines, or designs based on it.

Purchasing the product does not transfer ownership of its copyrighted text, photographs, illustrations, graphics, designs, patterns, shapes, 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 and templates, while ideas, methods, techniques, and processes may have different legal treatment.

If you would like to use one of our guides or templates 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.

Paper templates: make them, sell what you make

Everything in the section above applies to paper templates in full, including the template file, its patterns, and its design. This section adds one permission, and the credit that goes with it. It is the only exception to the personal-use rule above.

If you buy a paper template, you may use it to make ceramic pieces, and you may sell those pieces, in person or online. That permission belongs to the purchaser, and it covers the ceramic pieces only. It does not cover the template, its patterns, or any copy or version of them, which may not be shared, sold, or passed on in any form.

You may not claim that you created the design. The design of each paper template, including its shapes, proportions, patterns, and layout, was created by Dan Pearce. That stays true no matter how many pieces you make or sell. Do not describe the design as your own, and do not sell it as your own design.

Your final creative choices are yours. The glazes, colors, surface decoration, carving, texture, and any changes you make to the form belong to your finished piece, and you may claim them as your own work. The structural credit for the design stays with Dan Pearce.

Credit is required for pieces sold online. If you sell online a piece made from an Advanced, Expert, Insane, or Legendary template, your listing must credit Dan Pearce as the designer of the template and link to theclayhole.com. For example: Made from a paper template designed by Dan Pearce, https://theclayhole.com. Pieces made from Beginner and Intermediate templates do not need the credit, but you still may not claim the design as your own.

Templates marked NEW

Every paper template starts out marked NEW, as part of the New Pattern Program. NEW means nobody has built that template in clay yet. It does not mean the template is unfinished. Every template is audited at least three times for accuracy and is drawn to work as designed. The NEW mark comes off once someone builds the template and it checks out.

When you buy, claim, or download a template marked NEW, or a bundle, package, or collection that holds one, you accept that it has not been built yet, that you use it at your own discretion, and that you may need to adjust as you build if your project needs it.

A template marked NEW is covered by every one of these terms, exactly like any other template. If you find something indisputably wrong in one, the promise in "Refunds, mistakes, and making it right" below applies.

Pottery is wonderfully unpredictable. It also carries real risk.

We work hard to make The Clay Hole University and our paper templates 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 and templates 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 or template 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 or templates. 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 or template, 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 or template.

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

Digital guides and templates, 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 or template, 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 or template 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.

Refunds, mistakes, and making it right

Except where the law requires otherwise, we do not offer refunds on any paper template or printable guide. Pottery has a hundred different ways to do most things, and every guide and template shows one of them. We put real work into making each one as accurate, thorough, and finished as we can, because we want you to love what you bought. A guide or template that you would have done differently, or a piece that surprises you in the kiln, is pottery being pottery, not a problem with the file.

Mistakes happen, even in work we care about this much. To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not responsible for any cost or loss that comes with an error in what we send, whether that is clay, materials, firing costs, or your time.

What we will do is fix it. If you find something that is indisputably wrong in a guide or template (an actual error, not a different way of doing it), contact us and we will correct it within a week and upload the new document so you can download it.

Custom step illustrations from Clayla have one more promise. It is rare for an illustration not to work, but Clayla does not get every drawing right. If you buy one and it misses, text us the illustration and we will be happy to refund it.

Terms version 2026-11-15