You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 06.15

The Clay Hole University · Advanced Throwing

Throwing Sharp ShouldersPrintable pottery guide

A corner in soft clay: extra clay at the top, a dry rib, one pass, then nothing.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Advanced
  • 23 printable pages
  • 5 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 Sharp Shoulders printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “Throwing Sharp Shoulders” lesson. It is one decision and one motion: leave extra clay at the top of the cylinder, keep it dry, and touch the corner once. It covers which rib, how much water, why the shoulder softens again if you touch it twice, and the six ways it goes wrong. On paper it adds a row for every shoulder, a one page card, a quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

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

  • 23printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 5hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 16glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

The first pass makes the shoulder. The second starts unmaking it.

A sharp shoulder is a corner in soft clay, held up by nothing but its own thickness. Every pass of anything over that corner rounds it a little more, which means the whole technique is about touching it once and then leaving it alone.

That is a hard instruction to follow, because leaving something alone does not feel like working. Your hands want one more pass to tidy it, and one more pass is exactly what takes the corner off.

Your first three shoulders will soften because you touched them a second time to see if they were sharp. That is normal, and everybody does it. This guide exists so the fourth one does not.

Look inside

Real pages, for a corner you get one pass at

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

  • Page 6 of the “Throwing Sharp Shoulders” printable guide: belly it, sponge it nearly dry, and collar in slowly, shown with the sample watermark
    Belly it, sponge it nearly dry, and collar in slowlyStep two of four, with the reason under each move rather than a list of things to do.
  • Page 8 of the “Throwing Sharp Shoulders” printable guide: throw the neck behind a fence, shown with the sample watermark
    Throw the neck behind a fenceStep four, where the rib stands guard below the corner so nothing you do above it crosses back over.
  • Page 11 of the “Throwing Sharp Shoulders” printable guide: six ways it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Six ways it goes wrongEach one with what really caused it, what to do next time, and what to do with the pot in front of you.
  • Page 13 of the “Throwing Sharp Shoulders” printable guide: the shoulder log, shown with the sample watermark
    The shoulder logOne row per shoulder: the clay, how many passes you actually made, and whether the corner held.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

Why this move, of all of them, belongs on paper

The technique is a restraint, and restraint is the hardest thing to hold onto with wet hands and a corner in front of you.

  • It counts your passes for you

    One row per shoulder with the number of passes you actually made. Almost everybody writes down more than they thought.

  • It stays open at the moment it matters

    The four steps and their reasons, propped against the splash pan, where you can glance at them without taking a hand off the pot.

  • It separates next time from this piece

    The diagnosis pages give both: what to change on the next pot, and what can still be rescued on the one in front of you.

  • One card lives by the wheel for good

    The four steps, the rib, the water and the six failures on a single page you can pull out of the binder.

How the guide is built

Built for a technique that is mostly not doing things

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 on the tray, the mistakes that get made first, and what a corner that will hold feels like.

  • The complete lesson, redesigned for paper

    All four steps with the reason under each: the extra clay at the top, the belly, the collar, the single pass, and the neck thrown behind a fence.

  • Which rib, and how much water

    Square-edged, stiff, and dry when it meets the pot. The guide is specific about the tool, because the tool is half the technique.

  • What to do with the pot in front of you

    Every failure has two answers, one for the next pot and one for this one, because a softened shoulder can often still be rescued at leather hard.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Five videos chosen for what they show rather than who made them, 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 Sharp Shoulders” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

A crisp shoulder under a glaze that breaks is one of the few things on a wheel that reads as skill from across a room, and the technique is mostly not doing things. That is worth knowing, 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 06.15, the fifteenth 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 corner 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 row for every shoulder, a diagnosis section, a one page card for beside the wheel, a printed quiz with an answer key, and a glossary.
Why does my shoulder soften after I make it?
Because you touched it again. A sharp shoulder is a corner in soft clay, and every pass of a finger, sponge or wet rib rounds it. The first pass makes it, the second starts unmaking it.
Which rib should I use?
Square-edged and stiff, in wood, metal or hard plastic, and dry when it meets the clay. The guide is specific, because a soft red rib will not make a corner.
How much water?
Add none, and work in the slurry already on the pot. Wet hands slide and thin the wall; a surface scraped bone dry grabs instead of turning. The guide settles that, because three University lessons used to say it three ways.
Do I need more clay than usual?
A pound more on a mid-sized piece, thrown a little taller than the finished height, because the corner has to come from somewhere and it comes from the top third.
Can I save a shoulder I have already rounded?
Often, at soft leather hard, with a metal rib held at the angle and drawn once round on a slow wheel. The guide says exactly when that works and when it does not.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes. It is a rib, a rhythm and a decision, wherever you throw. Anything specific to our studio is 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.

Your first three will soften. The fourth will not.

Print it tonight. Leave the top third thick, keep the rib dry, make one pass, and write down how many passes you actually made.

Get the printable · $5.00

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