You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 06.02

The Clay Hole University · Advanced Throwing

Trimming While ThrowingPrintable pottery guide

The free lesson, rebuilt as a workbook that sits open beside the wheel while you learn to finish a pot’s bottom before it ever leaves the wheel head.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Advanced
  • 38 printable pages
  • 7 video picks
  • 7-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 Trimming While Throwing printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “Trimming While Throwing” lesson. It teaches finishing the foot while the pot is still soft and has never been lifted, walks through four different bottoms and the moves that make each one, and adds the pages that only work on paper: a log with one row per pot, a diagnosis section for the fourteen things that go wrong, a one page card for beside the wheel, a quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

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

  • 38printable pages, US Letter
  • 7quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 7hand-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 decision happens in four seconds, with both hands busy

The cut that shapes the bottom of your pot takes about four seconds, and it happens while the wheel is turning and your hands are wet. There is no moment in there to check anything. You either know which bottom you are making and where the tool goes, or you make the one your hand defaults to.

So most people learn one bottom, do it every time, and never find out that the other three were easier. Or they cut in the wrong place once, watch the pot go sideways, and are not quite sure afterwards what they did.

This guide is built to be open on the table while that happens. The route you are making circled in pencil, the setup checked off before the wheel turns, and the log filling in one pot at a time until your hands stop needing the page.

Look inside

Real pages, built for a wheel that is already turning

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

  • Page 10 of the “Trimming While Throwing” printable guide: four bottoms, sliced down the middle, shown with the sample watermark
    Four bottoms, sliced down the middleWhat you are actually making, drawn in section, so the shape you are cutting toward is a picture and not a guess.
  • Page 19 of the “Trimming While Throwing” printable guide: five checklists, shown with the sample watermark
    Five checklistsBuilt for a page propped against a bucket. Big rows, short lines, and a box to tick before the wheel turns.
  • Page 23 of the “Trimming While Throwing” printable guide: fourteen things that go wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Fourteen things that go wrongEach symptom, what it really is, what to do about it, and a box to tick for the ones that keep happening to you.
  • Page 27 of the “Trimming While Throwing” printable guide: the pot log, shown with the sample watermark
    The pot logOne row for every pot you finish on the wheel. Write the floor down before you pull the first wall, not after.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

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

Everything that decides this cut happens before you pick up the tool, and then it is over in seconds. Paper is the only thing you can check in that window.

  • It stays open while your hands are covered

    Prop it against the splash pan and glance at the route mid throw without wiping off, drying your hands and waking a screen that has already locked.

  • It remembers what keeps going wrong for you

    Tick the rows in the diagnosis section that describe your pots. After a week the pattern is sitting on the page, and the fix is printed next to it.

  • It turns repetitions into something you can see

    One row per pot, the floor written down before the first pull. Somewhere in the first few dozen there is a row where the bevel stopped being a decision, and you will want to find it.

  • One card lives by the wheel for good

    The setup, the bevel and the foot line, and the short version of the other routes, all on a single card. Pull it out of the binder and leave it where you throw.

How the guide is built

Built the way a four second habit actually gets learned

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 good bottom actually feels like under the tool.

  • The complete lesson, redesigned for paper

    The setup that decides ninety percent of it, all four routes, the moves for each one in order, and the honest section on when to stop and flip the pot over instead.

  • Five checklists to keep open at the wheel

    Built for a page propped against a bucket, with big rows and short lines you can tick without stopping what you are doing.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Seven 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.

  • A quiz that teaches instead of grading

    Seven questions with an answer key that explains every answer, so a wrong one still teaches you something.

  • Plain words for the jargon

    A sixteen term glossary, from the bevel and the undercut to the S crack, written the way we would explain it 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 “Trimming While Throwing” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Finishing a pot on the wheel is about as unglamorous as this craft gets, and it is also the thing that turns a decent pot into a finished one. Nobody should have to pay to find that out, 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 06.02, the second 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 the bevel is automatic

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 log with a row for every 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 routes should I learn first?
The guide says which one it would start you on and why, rather than leaving you to pick. The short version is that the one most people default to is not the easiest one.
Is this instead of trimming the pot upside down?
Sometimes, and the guide has an honest section on when to stop reading it and go flip the pot over. Neither method wins every time, and knowing which one this pot wants is most of the skill.
When do I cut the bevel?
Before you pull the first wall, which surprises people. That is also why the log asks you to write the floor down at that moment rather than afterwards.
Will this work on a pot I have already thrown?
No, and that is the whole point of the method. This is finishing the bottom while the pot is soft and has never been lifted, so it is a decision you make at the start of a pot, not the end.
My bottoms keep cracking. Is that this?
It can be, and the diagnosis section separates a cut in the wrong place from a compression problem from a drying problem. They look similar on the finished pot and have completely different fixes.
I am still learning to center. Is it too early?
Probably, and we would rather say so. This one assumes you can already throw a shape you want to keep. If you are still fighting the clay for center, start there and come back when you have pots worth finishing.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes. It is about where the tool goes and which way the pot is turning, 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.

Forty pots, and a page beside you for the first few

Print it tonight. Circle the route you are going to make. Sit down tomorrow, cut one bottom deliberately instead of by habit, and write the row.

Get the printable · $5.00

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