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The Clay Hole University · Project Guides

Throwing a TaginePrintable pottery guide

The whole tagine, in the order you make it: what the cone is really doing, the seat and the caliper number that decide the fit, the base, the cone thrown upside down and the knob, and the drying, glazing and kitchen rules that decide whether it lasts.

$10.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Advanced
  • 30 printable pages
  • 9 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 Throwing a Tagine printable guide?

It is the tagine on paper: why the lid is a cone and not a dome, starting weights and sizes for a small, standard and large pot, a stepped seat and the caliper number everything else is aimed at, the cone thrown upside down, the knob and its vent hole, the fit checked at three stages, drying the two pots as one, glazing and firing without fusing them, and what the finished pot can and cannot do in a kitchen. Built to be printed, ticked off and kept beside the wheel.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Throwing a Tagine” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 30printable pages, US Letter
  • 6quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 9hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 20glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For a pot that has to agree with itself

A tagine is not hard to throw. It is hard to make fit

Most people who can throw a wide bowl and a steep one can throw the two halves of a tagine. The trouble is that the halves have to agree with each other, and they only get to agree after both have dried, been fired and shrunk. A lid that dropped in beautifully on a Tuesday can be a hair too small on the shelf a month later, and a hair too small cannot be fixed.

Almost none of that is skill. It is a caliper reading taken at the right moment, a rim thrown a little wide on purpose, one strip of plastic over both pots, and a fit checked wet, at leather hard and again after bisque, while there is still something you can do about it. None of it is difficult once it is written down in the order it happens.

Then there is the part after the kiln. A stoneware tagine is ovenware, not flameware, and how it is heated decides whether it lasts for years or cracks the first time it is used properly. The guide gives that its own section, because it is the part most people skip.

Look inside

Real pages, for a bench with wet hands

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

  • Page 3 of the “Throwing a Tagine” 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 6 of the “Throwing a Tagine” printable guide: the numbers to start from, shown with the sample watermark
    The numbers to start fromClay weights, seat widths and cone heights for a small, standard and large pot, and the ratios worth memorizing. They are starting points, not laws, and the practice log has room for your own.
  • Page 15 of the “Throwing a Tagine” printable guide: fit, checked in stages, shown with the sample watermark
    Fit, checked in stagesWet with calipers, by hand at leather hard, and again after bisque. A lid is only ever right at a stage where you can still change it, so this is the page to have open when you sit it in its seat.
  • Page 24 of the “Throwing a Tagine” printable guide: every tagine, and how it fitted, shown with the sample watermark
    Every tagine, and how it fittedA log to write in: the seat you measured, the lid rim you threw to it, and how the lid sat at leather hard and after bisque. The second tagine starts from a number instead of a memory.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

The number you must not lose

A tagine takes weeks and hangs on a handful of measurements. Paper is good at both.

  • It holds still

    A page stays exactly where you left it while you steady a wide rim with two fingers. It does not go dark, and it does not need clay wiped off the screen.

  • A number with a home

    The seat measurement is the number the whole lid is aimed at. The guide has a page for writing it down next to how the lid sat at each stage, so it is on paper and not in your head.

  • Weeks in the middle

    Two pots drying together, a bisque, a glaze. The drying rules are a short list to pin above the shelf, not a video to find again when you have forgotten the plastic.

  • Beside the oven too

    The cold oven, the low heat and the trivet are on one page, so the rules that keep the finished pot whole can be read out to whoever else cooks in your kitchen.

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, checked

    We worked the clay weights back from volume and the firing sum from the studio’s rates, and both hold up. The cone height, the seat width and the size table agree with each other everywhere they appear.

  • Every video, read

    We read the description of all nine videos against the note beside each one. One note said a jar video used the same hand position as the tagine’s seat. Our own lessons say that video teaches a different move, and the guide now says so.

  • The knob, put right

    The lesson blamed trapped air for a knob blowing off in the bisque. It is water turning to steam, so the guide says that in all four places, and keeps the vent hole.

  • Four rules, put back

    The glazing list now says a kiln cookie or glaze catcher goes under every piece, that the glaze inside has to be one rated for food, that a fired lid is taken down wet, and that staff load the kilns.

  • 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 “Throwing a Tagine” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

There is a small sound you learn to listen for. You lift the lid an inch, let go, and it drops into the seat with a soft tap of clay on clay.

Everything in this guide is there to earn that tap.

Then put a stew in it, and let it do what tagines have done for a very long time.

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.

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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, the size table, the seat and the cone in numbered steps, a tagine 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?
The guide is written for the wheel, and the cone is thrown upside down as a steep bowl. The fit checks, the drying rules and the kitchen rules apply just as much to a hand built tagine, though, and the guide has a note on building the base by hand and throwing the lid.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Advanced, because a tagine is two difficult forms that have to agree with each other. If you have not made a lidded jar with a gallery yet, the guide says to start there, at a size where a mistake costs a pound of clay instead of eight.
Can I really cook in it?
In an oven, yes. On a burner, no. A stoneware tagine is ovenware and not flameware, and the guide has a whole section on how to heat it so that it lasts, including why it goes into a cold oven and never straight from the fridge to a hot one.
What if my lid comes out too small?
That is the classic fault, and it cannot be fixed, which is why the guide has you throw the rim a hair wide on purpose and take the fit at three stages. A lid that is a little wide can be trimmed. A lid that is a little small is scrap.
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 you will actually use at the wheel, the one page summary and the tagine log, were checked that way on purpose.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The one page summary and the tagine log are the two 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.
Do I have to be at a studio to use it?
No. Where the guide says something that is true of The Clay Hole, our firing cones and how our kilns are loaded for example, it says so and names the studio, so a reader working anywhere else knows which parts are a rule of the craft and which are ours.
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.

Throw the lid a hair wide, then check it at every stage

The pots take an afternoon and the fit takes weeks, and the guide is the rest of what stands between the two: the seat, the caliper number, the rim thrown wide, the plastic over both, the fit at leather hard and again after bisque, and the cold oven at the end. Do those and the lid drops in with a soft tap. Skip one and you find out at the kiln, when there is nothing left to do about it.

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