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The Clay Hole University · Firing and Fixing

Types of Pottery KilnsPrintable pottery guide

Every kind of kiln on paper, drawn and labeled: electric top loaders and front loaders, bell and car kilns, gas, salt, soda, raku, wood, the old industrial kilns and a barrel in a backyard, with a log for every kiln you meet.

$12.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: All levels
  • 31 printable pages
  • 5 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 Types of Pottery Kilns printable guide?

It is the free “Types of Pottery Kilns” lesson rebuilt for paper: the four choices behind every kiln, nineteen kilns sorted on one table, the three paths a flame can take, a labeled drawing for every kiln family from the electric top loader to the tunnel kiln, and what each one does to a pot. Built to be printed, carried to a studio or a firing and written in.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Types of Pottery Kilns” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 31printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 5hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 17glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For anyone who has stood in front of a kiln and wondered what it was

Four questions name any kiln.

Top loader, front loader, bell kiln, car kiln, anagama, noborigama, groundhog, bottle kiln. Kiln names pile up fast, and most potters pick them up one at a time from whoever happens to be standing nearby.

The guide sorts them for you. Every kiln is a box that keeps heat in, and what sets one apart is where the heat comes from, where the flame goes, how the pots get in and what the fire does to the surface. Each kiln family gets its own drawing in pencil on graph paper, with a numbered key that says what every part is for.

It also gives you what a web page cannot: a log to fill in while you stand in front of a kiln, at a studio, a school, a museum or a firing. Write down its four answers, and a few rows in, the names stop being a list.

Look inside

Real pages, drawn and labeled

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

  • Page 3 of the “Types of Pottery Kilns” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginOne page before the first kiln: what you will learn, what you will need, what is worth knowing first, the common pitfalls and what success looks like.
  • Page 9 of the “Types of Pottery Kilns” printable guide: when the kiln moves instead of you, shown with the sample watermark
    When the kiln moves instead of youThe bell kiln, drawn and labeled: the whole body winches up off a floor that never moves, so big and fragile work is loaded from every side.
  • Page 17 of the “Types of Pottery Kilns” printable guide: from the train kiln to the industrial age, shown with the sample watermark
    From the train kiln to the industrial ageA level wood kiln in cross section with the flame running sideways through the load, then the groundhog, the Bourry box and the start of the beehive, bottle and tunnel kilns.
  • Page 24 of the “Types of Pottery Kilns” printable guide: every kiln i have met, and its four answers, shown with the sample watermark
    Every kiln I have met, and its four answersA log to fill in wherever you meet a kiln: the heat source, the flame path, how the pots get in and what the fire does to the surface.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

Drawings you can hold up beside the real thing

Most of what this guide teaches is learned standing in front of a kiln. Paper goes there with you.

  • Every drawing at a size you can read

    Each kiln is drawn on graph paper with numbered callouts, and its key sits right beside it. Hold the page next to a real kiln and match the parts one by one.

  • The whole field on one table

    Every kiln in the guide by what makes it that kind, what heats it and where you are likely to meet one. The page to reach for when somebody names a kiln you have never heard of.

  • A log for the kilns you meet

    Columns for the heat source, the flame path, how the pots get in and what the fire does. Fill in a row on a studio tour, at a workshop or in a museum.

  • It goes where a phone should not

    A page does not mind a dusty kiln room or an outdoor firing, and it does not lock its screen while you are looking up at a chimney.

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 our other lessons

    We checked the lesson against our wood firing, salt and soda, raku and pit firing lessons, so the guide says what those pages say about the same kilns.

  • One fix made on the site as well

    The lesson once called the pit the oldest kiln while saying pit firing came before any kiln was built. We corrected the lesson, and the guide prints the corrected line.

  • Every drawing printed with its key

    The labeled drawings are printed large, each with its numbered key beside it, so no part is named without the reason it is there.

  • Written for a reader in any studio

    The section on our own kilns is written for a potter anywhere, and the one line that can change over time carries the month it was true.

  • Video notes that claim no more than the videos

    Each video note was written from the video’s own title and description, so it promises only what the video says it covers.

  • Codes that keep working

    Every link is a short Clay Hole address. If a page moves, we point the address at its new home 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 “Types of Pottery Kilns” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

Every kiln is a box that keeps heat in. Ask where the heat comes from, where the flame goes, how the pots get in, and what the fire does to the surface, and any kiln will tell you what it is.

Read it once, and the next time somebody shows you a kiln you have never seen, you will know what you are looking at.

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
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Sits next to

Three lessons that take one kiln further

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, every drawing printed large with its key, a kiln log to fill in, a one page reference, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Will it tell me which kiln to buy?
It tells you what each kind does well and what it cannot do, which is most of the choice. For most people starting at home it points to electric and explains what a front loader gives you over a top loader. Before you buy anything, it sends you to our lesson “Can I Put a Kiln in My Garage?”, because the power, the venting and the clearances decide more than the kiln does. It does not compare brands or models.
Can an electric kiln give me reduction colors?
Not in the usual sense, and the guide explains why: reduction means starving a flame of oxygen, and an electric kiln has no flame. It shows which kilns can fire reduction and how the damper on a gas kiln does it.
Does it show me how to build a kiln?
No. It shows what the homemade kilns are, a pit, a sawdust barrel and a fiber lined trash can, with a labeled drawing of all three and why every one of them belongs outdoors. For firing them, it points you to our primitive firing, pit firing and raku lessons.
Do I need to be a member of The Clay Hole to use it?
No. It covers kilns wherever you find them. The one section about our own kilns is written so it makes sense to a potter in any studio.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked All levels. No kiln skills are needed, 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 and the tables are black on white, and the drawings are pencil on pale graph paper, so they print clearly in grey. Color is used for headings, small labels and the numbers on the drawings.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The kiln log and the one page reference are the two worth carrying to a studio or a firing. 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 before your next visit to a kiln.
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.

Heat, flame, door, fire

Where the heat comes from, where the flame goes, how the pots get in and what the fire does. The guide keeps those four answers in front of you at every kiln you meet.

Get the guide · $12.00

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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.

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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.

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Terms version 2026-09-19b