You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 06.08

The Clay Hole University · Advanced Throwing

Throwing Pottery in SectionsPrintable pottery guide

Four ways to make a pot taller than your arms allow, sixteen steps in the order they happen, and what a joint that survives actually looks like.

$12.505 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Advanced
  • 33 printable pages
  • 17 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 Throwing Pottery in Sections printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “Throwing Pottery in Sections” lesson. It covers the four methods with an honest picker, six decisions that are cheaper to make at the wedging table, the sixteen steps in order, what a joint that survives looks like, the torch rules, and why more sectional pots die drying than die on the wheel. On paper it adds a planner you fill in per pot, a diagnosis section, a one page card, a quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

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

  • 33printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 17hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 16glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

Big pots are not thrown. They are assembled.

Nobody throws a thirty inch vase out of one lump. Not your favourite potter on the internet, not the person whose pot you saw at a gallery, and not us. They throw it in pieces and weld the pieces together while the clay is still soft enough to forget it was ever two things.

Watch somebody do it and it looks like nothing. It takes eleven seconds, and you come away certain you could do that. Then you try it and the top half slumps sideways into the bottom half and you have no idea which of the eleven seconds you got wrong.

Which is why this one is written down rather than filmed. Read the steps first, watch the hands second, then dry it slower than anything you have ever made, because more of these die drying than die on the wheel.

Look inside

Real pages, for a pot built across several days

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

  • Page 5 of the “Throwing Pottery in Sections” printable guide: pick a lane, shown with the sample watermark
    Pick a laneFour ways to make a pot taller than your arms allow, not ranked, with a picker underneath to narrow it down.
  • Page 8 of the “Throwing Pottery in Sections” printable guide: the list for your phone, shown with the sample watermark
    The list for your phoneSixteen steps in the order they happen, short enough to stay clean for the next pot.
  • Page 21 of the “Throwing Pottery in Sections” printable guide: diagnosis, shown with the sample watermark
    DiagnosisSomething went wrong and here is probably why, with a box to tick for the ones that keep happening to you.
  • Page 17 of the “Throwing Pottery in Sections” printable guide: plan your sections, shown with the sample watermark
    Plan your sectionsThe arithmetic worked through for one pot: how tall to throw each section wet, and what it will cost you.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

Why sectional work, of all things, belongs on paper

This is a pot built over several days, with numbers taken at the wedging table that you need again two sessions later. Nothing on a screen carries that across.

  • It carries across sessions

    You will not finish a sectional pot in one sitting. The page keeps the first session’s numbers where the third session can still read them.

  • It makes you do the arithmetic first

    How tall each section goes wet, how much clay that costs, and what the whole thing will cost to fire. All much cheaper to know at the wedging table.

  • It stays open with a torch in your hand

    The stiffening rules and the torch rules are short lines on a page you can prop up, which is the only safe place for them.

  • One card lives by the wheel for good

    The sixteen steps with the explanations taken out, on a single page you can pull out of the binder.

How the guide is built

Built for a pot that takes longer than your memory

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 mistakes that get made first, and what a joint that survives actually looks like.

  • The complete lesson, redesigned for paper

    Four methods with a picker, six decisions before you centre, and all sixteen steps in the order they actually happen.

  • The joint, with a section of its own

    It is the only part that really matters, and it is the part every video skips past in four seconds.

  • Drying, where these are actually lost

    A thicker joint dries later than the wall either side of it, and that tug is the crack. Given its own pages rather than a line.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Seventeen videos across sixteen channels, none of them ours, each with a note on why it is worth your time and a code that goes straight to it.

  • Plain words for the jargon

    A sixteen term glossary, written the way we would explain it standing next to you at the wheel.

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 Pottery in Sections” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

The single most useful thing anybody told me about big pots is that they are not thrown, they are assembled. It changes what you think you are bad at. So the lesson stays free, for anybody, anywhere.

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 06.08, the eighth guide in Advanced Throwing. 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
  • 9guides in your cart2 on us
Where this leads

What to learn once a joint holds

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 planner you fill in per pot, a diagnosis section with boxes to tick, a one page card for beside the wheel, a printed quiz with an answer key, and a glossary.
Which of the four methods should I use?
There is a picker on paper: six rows, find the line that sounds most like you and read across. The guide does not rank them, because they solve different problems.
Do I need a torch?
For some methods, yes, and the wet to wet method skips stiffening entirely. The guide gives the studio rules plainly, including never on a plastic bat.
Why do my joints keep cracking?
Usually the joint is thicker than the wall either side of it, so it dries later and the wall pulls away while the joint is still holding on. That tug is the crack, and the drying section exists for it.
How much clay am I going to go through?
More than you expect, and the planner gives you a number for your own pot rather than a guess. The cost of firing it is in there too.
Is this too advanced for me?
It assumes you can throw a clean cylinder at seven or eight pounds. If you can, sectional work is mostly patience and bookkeeping.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes. The methods and the joint are the same anywhere. The torch rules and the shelf and kiln pages are marked as ours, and the studio numbers carry the date they were true.
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 looked at the workbook pages in grayscale to be sure.
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 don’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.

Go make something ridiculous

Print it tonight. Do the arithmetic at the wedging table, keep the sixteen steps where you can see them, and dry it slower than you think you need to.

Get the printable · $12.50

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