You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 05.11

The Clay Hole University Ā· The Pottery Wheel

Proportions, Ratios and Wall ThicknessPrintable pottery guide

The numbers nobody says out loud while they are demonstrating. Six worth memorizing, a spec card already filled in for seven forms, and three ways to know your wall thickness with only one of them guessing.

$10.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Intermediate
  • 32 printable pages
  • 11 video picks
  • 8-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 printable edition of Proportions, Ratios and Wall Thickness?

It is the free lesson of the same name, rebuilt as a workbook. It opens with the six numbers on a single page, then takes each one apart. Wall thickness, where even beats thin every time. The floor, measured with a needle tool before your first pull, because after the pulls it is decided and out of reach. How much clay each form takes, and how big it really comes out. A spec card for seven shapes, printed already filled in, with the arithmetic underneath for any size and any bag. Then proportion, the foot, rims and handles, how to hit the same numbers four times in a row, shrinkage, and the six ways it goes wrong. On paper it adds a numbers log, a one-page card for the wheel, a printed quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

Prefer to read it online first? ā€œProportions, Ratios and Wall Thicknessā€ is free to read, and always will be.

  • 32printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 11hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 16glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

A number is something you look up

Watch a really good throwing video all the way through, walk to a wheel, and answer three questions from memory. How thick should the floor be? Where should the widest part of the pot sit? How much clay does a mug take?

You watched somebody say all three out loud. You probably cannot say any of them back. That is not a memory problem, it is a format problem. Video is the right medium for hands and the wrong one for figures.

So this is the guide the rest of our wheel guides point at when they need a number. Every target written out, in short lines, in roughly the order you meet it at the wheel, on paper you can glance at with wet hands.

Look inside

Real pages, for the shelf beside the wheel

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

  • Page 5 of the ā€œProportions, Ratios and Wall Thicknessā€ printable guide: the six numbers, shown with the sample watermark
    The six numbersWall, floor, rim, widest point, foot and shrinkage on one page, then the wall answer that holds for everybody: even survives, uneven does not.
  • Page 9 of the ā€œProportions, Ratios and Wall Thicknessā€ printable guide: the floor, shown with the sample watermark
    The floorThe rule in four lines, the needle tool check that takes four seconds, and the honest part about what actually tears a floor open.
  • Page 11 of the ā€œProportions, Ratios and Wall Thicknessā€ printable guide: clay weight, shown with the sample watermark
    Clay weightThe six floor steps for the wheel, then why height from a fixed weight is the only honest measure of throwing skill there is.
  • Page 14 of the ā€œProportions, Ratios and Wall Thicknessā€ printable guide: the numbers log, shown with the sample watermark
    The numbers logEight rows, one pot each: clay weighed, floor measured before the first pull, wall at the base, where the widest point landed, and what came out of the kiln.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

Numbers belong somewhere you can look

You need these in the four seconds between opening and your first pull, with clay on both hands. That is not a moment for a screen.

  • The numbers card

    The six numbers, the wall, the floor and the ratios worth knowing, on one page you can prop against the splash pan.

  • The spec card, already filled in

    Seven forms, printed with the answers in place: throw it this wide by this tall, start with this much clay, put the belly here, cut the foot ring this wide.

  • A numbers log

    Measure, do not remember. Eight rows, and four pots in the pattern is yours rather than ours.

  • The arithmetic, in plain words

    Finished size divided by one minus the shrinkage, so you can work any size in any clay without the web tool.

How the guide is built

Built to be looked up, not read once

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 you need, the traps, and what success looks like.

  • Six numbers, then the reasoning

    The short version is one page. Everything after it is why, when to break it, and what happens if you do.

  • The floor rule, stated in full

    The floor matches the bottom of the wall, plus about another quarter inch when a foot ring is coming, which lands near seven sixteenths on a mug. It is a wet number, measured on the wheel before anything comes off the bottom.

  • The web calculator, run on paper

    The lessonā€™s spec card is an interactive tool online. Here it is a table with every row already worked out, and the arithmetic underneath for anything it does not cover.

  • Honest about what is not settled

    A cracked bottom is put where the sources put it, on one part of a pot drying ahead of another. Compression is taught as a habit that helps, not as the whole story, and the ratios are offered as a place to start rather than a law.

  • Codes that keep working

    Eleven hand-picked videos, each on a short Clay Hole address, so a printed copy keeps working when a video moves.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free ā€œProportions, Ratios and Wall Thicknessā€ lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Nobody says these numbers out loud while they are demonstrating, and if you have been quietly assuming everyone else absorbed them somewhere you did not, they did not either. Numbers are looked up, not absorbed. That should not cost anybody a thing, 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 05.11, the eleventh guide in The Pottery Wheel. The series is designed to live together in a binder, section by section, so the craft ends up on your shelf in the order you learn it.

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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Where this leads

From the numbers to the hands

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 a numbers log, a one-page numbers card, the spec card printed already filled in, a quiz with an answer key, and a glossary.
How thick should a floor be, exactly?
The same thickness as the bottom of the wall you are about to pull. If you are going to trim a foot ring into it, add about another quarter inch, because the ring is cut out of that floor. On a mug that lands near seven sixteenths of an inch on the wheel, and what is left inside the ring after trimming should match the wall again.
Why does another lesson say a quarter inch?
Because it is the same rule answering a different question. A quarter inch is roughly the wall of a mug, so a flat bottom you will never trim is about a quarter inch. The extra quarter is the foot ring allowance. This guide is the one that writes both halves down, which is why the other wheel guides point at it.
Should I be aiming for a thin wall?
Aim for an even one. A consistent quarter inch outlives a lumpy eighth inch every time, because thick and thin sections of the same pot dry and shrink at different speeds and that difference has to go somewhere. Get even boring first. Thin is what happens afterwards on its own.
Do these numbers work with my clay?
The wall, floor and rim do, because they follow the size of the pot rather than the bag. The sizes and weights assume a clay that shrinks about twelve percent, and the guide gives you the arithmetic to redo any row for your own: finished size divided by one minus the shrinkage.
How much should a mug shrink?
Somewhere between ten and fourteen percent for most stoneware and porcelain, so every number in the guide is a wet number and you throw everything bigger than you want it. The figures come from the clay manufacturers and are averages, which the guide says out loud.
Are the proportion ratios rules?
No, and the guide is plain about that. They are what tends to look right: the widest point anywhere except the exact middle, a foot a third to a half of the widest diameter, two fingers of handle gap. They are a place to start, and the lesson says outright that none of it is a law.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes. Arithmetic does not care where you throw. Where something is our studioā€™s, such as the shrink rates of the clays we stock, the guide says so and dates it.
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 check that every QR code still scans from a soft grayscale home print.
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 donā€™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.

Measure the floor. Then pull.

Print it, keep the numbers card at the wheel, and fill in the first row tonight.

Get the printable · $10.00

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