You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 13.02

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

Refining, Testing and Firing Wild ClayPrintable pottery guide

Turning a bucket of dug clay into a clay body on paper: two ways to clean it, five tests in order, what to do about the results, and a log for every batch you test.

$10.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Advanced
  • 33 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 Refining, Testing and Firing Wild Clay printable guide?

It is the free “Refining, Testing and Firing Wild Clay” lesson rebuilt for paper: the dry method and the wet method, getting the water back out, five tests you run in order, what to do about what they tell you, six rules for firing it, and five ways to finish the pot. It is built to be printed, kept beside the bucket and written in. The clay is for your own kiln or an outdoor firing, never ours, and the guide says that first.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Refining, Testing and Firing Wild Clay” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 33printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 9hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 12glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For anyone with a bucket of dug clay and a lot of questions

Test it before you fall in love with it.

Digging your own clay is one of the most interesting things a potter can do. A bucket of dirt from a hillside, and a few weeks later a pot made of one specific place. It is also the point where it is easiest to get hurt, because a wild clay is a promise from nobody until you test it.

The guide gives you the order of things: pick the dry method or the wet method, get the water back out, run five tests, change one thing at a time, and make your pots only when you know what the clay will do. It is mostly numbers and sequence, which is exactly what a page does well.

It also gives you what a web page cannot: a log to write in. Where the clay came from, how you cleaned it, what the tests said and where it ended up. A year from now those numbers are the only thing that tells one bucket from another.

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 “Refining, Testing and Firing Wild Clay” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginOne page before any clay is touched: what you will learn, what you would need, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls and what a good result looks like.
  • Page 4 of the “Refining, Testing and Firing Wild Clay” printable guide: this clay cannot come into our kilns, shown with the sample watermark
    This clay cannot come into our kilnsThe rule first, in plain words: what the studio will not fire, why, and where wild clay does get fired.
  • Page 17 of the “Refining, Testing and Firing Wild Clay” printable guide: wild clay next to the stuff in the bag, shown with the sample watermark
    Wild clay next to the stuff in the bagFiring range, color, shrinkage, absorption and strength, side by side with a bagged stoneware, so you know what you are trading away.
  • Page 27 of the “Refining, Testing and Firing Wild Clay” printable guide: every batch i tested, and what it told me, shown with the sample watermark
    Every batch I tested, and what it told meA log to write in: where it came from, how you cleaned it, shrinkage, absorption and the top cone it took.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

A bucket, wet hands and a list of numbers

This half of wild clay is almost all numbers and sequence, and you need them with slip on both thumbs. Paper suits that.

  • The numbers where you can find them

    A hundred millimeters, a ratio, a mesh size, a test order. They are on the page, and on one sheet, instead of three weeks back in a video.

  • A reason for every step

    Dry it bone dry first, slake it, stir it thin, stop pouring when the stream goes cloudy. Each step comes with the reason, so you can tell when to bend it.

  • A log for every batch

    Columns for where it came from, shrinkage, absorption and the top cone. Written down, a batch stops being a bucket of dirt and becomes a clay body.

  • It does not mind a wet bench

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

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.

  • The kiln rule, said once and clearly

    No outside clay in our kilns, tested or not. The guide says it on the first page of the lesson and again in the firing rules, so it cannot be missed.

  • Dust and fumes, handled plainly

    Dry grinding is a home job, outdoors, in a fitted N95 or better. Fired clay is smoothed wet, never dry, with safety glasses. A slow bisque is run where the fumes can leave.

  • Counts and claims that add up

    A screen that cannot take out the sand it was said to, a count of test bars that ran out, a step that skipped the stiffening. We checked the sums and fixed them.

  • Video notes that say what the videos say

    Each video note was rewritten from the video’s own description and chapter list, so it claims no more than they 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 “Refining, Testing and Firing Wild Clay” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

Digging your own clay is one of the most interesting things a potter can do. A bucket of dirt from a hillside, and a few weeks later a pot made of one specific place.

One thing for us to say plainly: none of this can be fired at The Clay Hole. We would rather help you do it properly at home, and show you your pots when they are done.

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, a log to write in, a one page summary, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Can I fire the clay at The Clay Hole?
No. Outside clay is not allowed in our kilns, tested or not, and that covers slips and glazes made from found material too. The guide says this first, and then teaches you to fire it at home in your own kiln or in an outdoor firing.
Do I need a kiln of my own?
For the testing and firing, yes: a small kiln of your own, or an outdoor firing such as a pit or a barrel. The cleaning and the first tests can be done without one.
Is the dry method safe?
It is the dustiest thing you will do with clay. The guide says to grind outdoors in a fitted N95 or better and never to sweep dry clay dust, and it offers the wet method as the way to keep the material under water the whole time.
Will it tell me whether a wild clay pot is food safe?
No. The guide says plainly that nothing in it is a food safety assessment, and that a porous or crazed wild clay pot is for planters, vases and sculpture. It teaches the tests that tell you what your clay does.
Do I need to be a member of The Clay Hole to use it?
No. The method works anywhere you have a bucket and a kiln of your own. Where a line is only ours, such as the kiln rule, the guide says so.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Advanced. It helps to have made and fired a few pots 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 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.
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 bucket 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.

Test it first

Clean it, test it, change one thing at a time. The guide keeps every number in front of you at the bucket.

Get the guide · $10.00

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