The Clay Hole University Ā· The Pottery Wheel
What to Check When Throwing Goes WrongPrintable pottery guide
Twenty one things a pot does on the wheel, each with its own short list of what to check and the order to check it in, plus a six point check that fixes about half of them before you diagnose anything at all.
- Skill level: Beginner
- 33 printable pages
- 16-term glossary
- 8-question quiz + answer key
- Instant download
- Prints on any home printer
- The full lesson stays free online
What is the printable edition of What to Check When Throwing Goes Wrong?
It is the free lesson of the same name, rebuilt as a reference you work down rather than read through. It opens with the six point check: about ten seconds of stool height, braced elbows, joined hands, wheel speed and water, which is behind roughly half of everything below it. Then a labelled cross section of a pot, so every list uses the same six words. Then twenty one problems, grouped in the order a throw happens: four about sitting and setup, three about centering, two about staying stuck to the wheel, three about the floor, six about the walls and three about the clay itself. Each one has a short list you work down until something is off. On paper it adds a diagnosis log, a one page card for beside the splash pan, a quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.
Prefer to read it online first? āWhat to Check When Throwing Goes Wrongā is free to read, and always will be.
- 33printable pages, US Letter
- 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
- 8QR codes, each on a short Clay Hole address
- 16glossary terms in plain language
- 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Guessing costs you the pot
Checking costs you thirty seconds. Guessing costs you the pot, and then it quietly costs you the next one too, because the thing you changed was not the thing that was wrong.
Most of these problems have three or four possible causes and only one of them is yours. The lists are ordered, so the likeliest and cheapest thing to check comes first and you stop at the first thing that is off. That is the whole method, and it is the reason this one is longer than the guides either side of it.
A reference is not a read. It belongs open beside the wheel at the moment the pot is doing the thing, which is exactly the moment nobody wants to be scrolling with a wet hand.
Real pages, for beside the splash pan
These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark. The full guide has none.
How to use itFind the thing your pot is doing, work down the list under it, and stop when you reach the cause. Twenty one problems, grouped in the order a throw happens, and six things to check before any of them. 
The six point checkStool and wheel height, elbows locked down, weight over your hands, hands joined into one tool, wheel speed matched to the stage, and water enough to slide but not to soften. 
Speed, stage by stageThe list for a wheel running at the wrong speed, from centering down to rim work and ribs, then the first of the three ways centering goes wrong. 
The diagnosis logTen rows, one per pot that went wrong: what the pot did, which list you used, the first thing that was off, and what you changed and what happened next.
You need it open at the worst possible moment
A pot going wrong gives you about a minute, and both of your hands are already busy. Paper opens flat and stays where you left it.
The wheel card
The six point check, the speed for each stage, the numbers worth remembering, and how to tell a pot worth finishing from one that is already finished.
A diagnosis log
One line per pot that went wrong, so the cause that keeps turning up stops being a mystery and starts being a habit you fixed.
Lists you can tick
Every problem has its own ordered list with real boxes, so you can work down it in pencil and rub it out for the next session.
Open at your problem
A map at the front takes you to the one thing your pot is doing, without reading past twenty problems you do not have.
Built to be opened mid throw
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 traps, and what success looks like.
The six point check first
About ten seconds of setup that covers roughly half the problems in the guide, before you diagnose anything.
The words on a pot
A cross section drawn to scale, and the six words every list below uses: the rim, the wall, the profile, the corner, the floor and the base.
Twenty one problems, in throwing order
Sitting and setup, centering, staying stuck, the floor, the walls and the clay, so the list you want sits where the throw went wrong.
Checked against the other lessons
Six places where this lesson disagreed with the Universityās own wheel lessons were traced and corrected, including which way the outside hand sits during a pull and what really causes a crack that shows up a week later.
Codes that keep working
Every QR code points at a short Clay Hole address, so a printed copy keeps working when a lesson moves.
The lesson is free. It always will be.
All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free āWhat to Check When Throwing Goes Wrongā lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.
Nobody should have to pay to find out that their back hurts because of their stool, or that the cylinder went to a bowl because one hand was riding high. Most of what beginners think is talent is just knowing what to look at, 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
Build a little pottery library
Every guide carries a permanent number. This one is 05.18, the eighteenth guide in The Pottery Wheel, and the one the rest of that section keeps pointing back at. 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.
- 5guides in your cart1 on us
- 9guides in your cart2 on us
From the symptom back to the move
These lessons pick up where this one leaves off. Each one is free to read now.
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Guide 05.01 · free lessonHow to Throw on the Pottery WheelThe whole throw in the order it happens, so every list in this guide has a move behind it.
Read the free lesson -
Guide 05.07 · free lessonCompressing the Floor and the RimThe floor and the rim, the two compressions that prevent about half of the problems in this guide.
Read the free lesson -
Guide 05.05 · free lessonPulling Walls Without a CollapseSix of these twenty one problems happen on the way up, and this is the lesson about the move that causes them.
Read the free lesson
Before you buy
Is this different from the free lesson?
Are there videos in this one?
Twenty one problems sounds like a lot to look through.
I am a complete beginner. Is it too much?
Is it my clay, or is it me?
My pot looked fine and cracked a week later. Is that in here?
Will it tell me how fast the wheel should be going?
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Do I need a fancy printer?
Can I print it in black and white?
Can I use it on an iPad or laptop instead?
How do I get it after I buy?
What if the guide gets updated?
Can I share it with my class or studio?
Check one thing. Change one thing.
Print it, keep the wheel card by the splash pan, and put the next bad pot on the log instead of in the bucket.
Get the printable · $12.50