Printed and bound · First edition, October 2026

Every way a pot goes wrong, printed and bound, on your table.

The Pottery Failure Atlas on paper. Eighty pages in full color, spiral bound so it lies flat at the page while your hands are wet. Fifty-four failures from the wedging table to years of use, every one drawn, with its likely causes, the evidence that tells them apart, what can still be rescued and the experiment for the next pot.

$60 plus $8.95 flat shipping anywhere in the US
  • 35 of 35 copies left
  • Both PDFs included
  • Ships mid-November, in order

The same 54 entries are free to read at The Clay Hole University. This is the one that lives at the glaze table.

The Pottery Failure Atlas, a spiral bound full color book from The Clay Hole, on a studio table among cracked, crazed and crawled pots
Why it exists

Made for the moment you are holding a pot that came out wrong.

You know the moment. The kiln is unloaded, the piece you spent three weeks on is in your hands, and something is wrong with it. A crack across the floor. A glaze that crawled off the rim and left bare clay. A lid that no longer fits. The hours are gone, and the only thing left is the question.

Most answers to that question are a forum thread with six guesses and no drawing. The Atlas is the person next to you who has seen it before. Flip to the finder, match what you can see and when you first saw it, and the page tells you what probably happened, how to be sure, what can still be saved, and what to change on the next pot.

The moment you notice a failure is rarely the moment it began. A crack found in the bisque usually started in the drying. A crack out of the glaze firing usually started at the wheel. Every entry is sorted the way you meet it, then points back to where it started.

Every entry works the same way

  1. 1
    What you see, and whenOne line, so you know in a second whether you are on the right page.
  2. 2
    The drawingNumbered parts, with the key beside it, so nothing sits on top of the thing you are looking at.
  3. 3
    Likely causesMost likely first. Usually three, sometimes five.
  4. 4
    The evidenceHow to tell those causes apart from what is in your hands: the edges of the crack, where on the pot it is, whether glaze rolled into it.
  5. 5
    The rescueWhat that stage still allows. Wet clay heals, leather hard still joins, bisque takes small patches, and some things never refire.
  6. 6
    The next experimentOne thing to change on the next pot, so the same failure does not come back.
Sample pages

Nine pages, exactly as they print.

Tap any page to read it full size and swipe through the rest. These are straight out of the print file, so what you see is what arrives.

Nine of eighty. The other 71 look like these.

What is inside

Fifty-four failures, in the order you meet them.

Seven moments, from the wedging table to the dinner table years later. Open the book at the moment you noticed the problem and the entries are right there.

80pages, full color
54failures, each on its own page
54numbered drawings
20glossary terms
9 × 11½inches, spiral bound

  • Moment 1 · Entries 01 to 09

    While you were making it

    Holes and streaks in the cut clay, a wall that came out thicker on one side, the wall that twisted and collapsed, going through the bottom, chatter and gouges when you trim.

  • Moment 2 · Entries 10 to 21

    While it dried

    The S crack, cracks around the inside and across the underside, splits at the rim, a rim gone oval, a curled plate, handles that cracked or fell off, seams and coil lines that opened.

  • Moment 3 · Entries 22 to 25

    Out of the bisque

    The piece that exploded or blew a flake off a thick spot, a crack found in the bisque, bisque that feels soft and chalky, chips and snapped parts.

  • Moment 4 · Entries 26 to 28

    While you were glazing

    Raw glaze that cracked, curled or peeled, glaze that beads up or slides off as you apply it, fingerprints, drips and thick bands in the raw coat.

  • Moment 5 · Entries 29 to 40

    Out of the glaze firing: the glaze

    Crawling, pinholes, blisters, crazing, shivering, a dry or thin coat, runs onto the shelf, layered glazes gone wrong, the wrong color, a cloudy clear, specks, underglaze that faded or patched.

  • Moment 6 · Entries 41 to 48

    Out of the glaze firing: the clay and the shape

    Dunting, a crack with glaze rolled into it, bloating, slumping, pots stuck to the shelf, a sharp glassy foot, a lid fused on, a piece that came out smaller than you made it.

  • Moment 7 · Entries 49 to 54

    Days, weeks or years later

    Crazing that showed up late, lime pops, a pot that weeps or leaves a damp ring, thermal shock, gray cutlery marks, a rim that chipped in use.

  • Before and after the entries

    The parts you use most

    Four questions to read any pot before you blame the kiln. The finder. What each stage still allows. What goes to the studio team. The atlas on one page. A 20 term glossary.

Also in the book

  • Four questions, in order, that sort most failed pots before you open a single entry
  • The finder: every failure listed by what you see and when, with its page
  • What each stage still allows, from wet clay to the glaze firing
  • How to read the edges of a crack, and which failures refire and which never will
  • What goes to the studio team, so you know when to stop and ask
  • Two hand-picked videos on cracks and glaze defects, reached by QR code
  • The atlas on one page, to keep beside you at the glaze table
  • A glossary of the twenty words the entries lean on
Every one of them drawn

A photograph shows you the crack. A drawing shows you why.

A photo of a cracked floor is a photo of a cracked floor. The drawing beside entry 10 cuts the pot in half, so you can see the floor that stayed thick and wet while the walls dried and pulled first. That is the cause, and no photograph can show it.

Each drawing is numbered, and the key beside it says what each number points at, so there is never a label sitting on top of the thing you are trying to look at. Fifty-four of them, one per failure, printed in full color at close to five inches across.

  • Labeled sketch of an S shaped crack in a bowl floor, seen from above and in section, with the floor that stayed thick and wet marked

    Entry 10. The S crack, from above and in section. The floor was still wet when the walls had already shrunk.

  • Labeled sketch of a celadon mug with crazing, marker rubbed in to show the cracks, and a section of glaze cracks stopping at the clay

    Entry 32. Crazing on a mug, with marker rubbed in, and the section that shows the cracks stop at the clay.

  • Labeled sketch of pots fused to their cookies and to each other after a glaze firing, with the glaze that glued them marked

    Entry 45. Pots fused to their cookies and to each other, and where the glaze that glued them came from.

What guessing costs

The expensive part of a failed pot is the next one.

One failed pot is clay, firing and your hours. The real cost is the pots after it: the ones made the same way again because the cause was never pinned down, each one waiting on another bisque and another glaze firing to find out. Move the sliders to your own numbers.

Pieces you finish in a typical month8
How many of them come out wrong15%
Clay and glaze in one piece$4
Firing one piece$5
Hours in one piece, start to finish2
What an hour of your time is worth$20
Extra pots it takes you to pin a cause down by trial and error2
Weeks between one kiln firing and the next2

Guesswork, per year

$1,411

spent on pots made the same wrong way again while you work out why, at your numbers

  • One failed pot costs you$49
  • Pots that come out wrong a year14
  • Extra pots lost to guesswork a year29
  • Hours lost to those extra pots58
  • Waiting on kilns, per failure4 weeks

Skip one guesswork round per failure and that is $706 a year. The book has paid for itself by the second pot it saves.

The sliders start at round numbers, not ours. At The Clay Hole a glaze firing is $0.05 a cubic inch, $4.80 flat for a piece under 125 cubic inches, and bisque is free. A 25 lb bag of clay starts at $28, so the clay is rarely the expensive part. The hours are. The estimate counts the pots you remake while guessing; it does not count the piece you would have sold, the gift that did not happen, or the glaze firing shared with everything else on the shelf.

The free version

The lesson is free. The book is the one that works at the glaze table.

The same 54 entries live free at The Clay Hole University, and they always will. If a screen is all you need, use it. The printed book earns its place in the room where the pot is.

  • Open at the page, hands wet

    A phone locks, scrolls and smears. A spiral bound book lies flat open at entry 32 while you rub marker into the cracks to read them, and it is still there when you look back up.

  • The finder, by thumb

    From what you see to the page in a few seconds. No search box, no loading, no sign-in, no Wi-Fi in the kiln room.

  • The drawings at full size

    Every drawing prints at close to five inches across. On a phone the same drawing is two inches wide and you are pinching it.

  • Write in it

    Dates, glazes, what you tried, what happened. Pencil in the margins turns the book into your own log of every failure and what fixed it.

  • The whole book at once

    The one-page atlas at the back and the glossary are a glance away, not three taps. Flipping between entry 23 and entry 41 to compare two cracks takes two fingers.

  • For a studio or a classroom

    One copy at the glaze table answers the same question for everyone, with the same evidence, in the same words. It settles arguments.

Read the whole thing first if you like. Every entry is on the free page, drawings included. Then decide whether you want it on paper.

Read the free version
What arrives

The book in the mail, and both PDFs in your inbox.

  • In the mail

    The printed and bound Atlas

    Eighty pages, full color on both sides, spiral bound, shrink-wrapped. Ships anywhere in the United States for a flat $8.95.

    • 54 failures, every one drawn
    • The finder, the four questions, the one-page atlas
    • Lies flat at the page

  • By email, right away

    The print-ready PDF

    The exact 80 page file this book was printed from, in full color at 9 by 11.5 inches. Read it on a tablet, or take it to any print shop if your copy ever wears out.

  • By email, right away

    The University version

    The same atlas as a printable guide for a home printer: lighter on ink, US Letter, with the eight question quiz and its answer key. It is sold on its own for $20. Here it comes with the book.

How it is made

Printed the way our Glaze Bible is printed.

Same printer, same spec, same reason. A book that lives at a glaze table gets wet, dusty and dropped, and a home printer on copy paper does not survive that for long.

  • 80 pages on 40 sheetsprinted on both sides, full color on every page
  • 9 by 11.5 inchesdrawings close to five inches across
  • 18 pt card stock coversabout half a millimeter thick, as stiff as a heavy postcard
  • 80 lb glossy paperthe weight of an art book, heavier than a magazine page
  • Spiral boundopens flat and stays flat, at any page
  • Shrink-wrappedeach copy sealed before it ships
  • First editionOctober 2026, 35 copies
  • Made by The Clay Holeevery entry, drawing and rescue by the studio team

Why it costs $60

It goes out to a printer who builds books to that spec a few copies at a time. Small custom runs are not cheap, and full color on all 80 pages is the expensive part. The price covers the printing, the binding and the two PDFs, with a little left over for the next thing we build.

What the 80 pages hold

Fifty-four drawings. Fifty-four sets of causes, evidence and rescues. Fifty-four experiments. A finder, a glossary, a one-page reference and the four questions, built, drawn and checked one entry at a time. The free version took the same work; the book is that work in a form you can hold.

Thirty-five copies

When these are gone, they are gone.

Thirty-five were printed to find out whether potters want this on paper. There is no second printing promised. If every copy sells, we decide then; if they do not, this is the only run there will ever be.

  • Ships mid-November 2026. Orders go out in the order they came in, as soon as the copies land from the printer.
  • $8.95 flat shipping anywhere in the United States. Every copy ships; there is no pickup and nothing goes outside the US.
  • The PDFs come first. Both download links arrive by email as soon as the order goes through.
  • No refunds on printed books. A copy that arrives damaged is swapped for a new one.

35

of 35 copies left

Questions

Before you order

Is this the same as the free lesson on the website?

The teaching is identical: the same 54 entries, the same drawings, the same causes, evidence, rescues and experiments. The book is that material built for a table instead of a screen, with the finder at the front, the one-page atlas and the glossary at the back, and every drawing at full size. Nothing in the book is kept off the website.

Which PDFs come with it, and when do I get them?

Two. The print-ready file this book was made from, 80 pages at 9 by 11.5 inches in full color, and the University version, which is the same atlas laid out as a printable guide for a home printer with less ink on every page, plus the quiz and its answer key. Both download links arrive by email as soon as the order goes through, before the book ships.

When does the book ship?

The 35 copies are at the printer now and are expected in mid-November 2026. Orders ship in the order they came in, as soon as the copies arrive, by USPS, anywhere in the United States, for a flat $8.95.

Can I pick it up at the studio instead of paying shipping?

No. Every copy ships, members included, so the price is the same for everyone. We do not ship outside the United States.

Will there be more printed?

There is no guarantee. Thirty-five were printed to see whether potters want the Atlas on paper. If they sell out, we decide then whether to print again. The free version on the website stays either way.

Is it the same quality as the printed Glaze Bible?

Same printer and the same spec: 18 pt card stock covers, 80 lb glossy pages, full color on both sides, spiral bound and shrink-wrapped. The Atlas is 80 pages to the Glaze Bible’s 280, so it is a thinner book that opens the same way.

What if my copy arrives damaged?

Send us a photo and we swap it for a new one. Beyond that, printed books follow our store policy: no refunds.

Does it tell me how to fix my pot?

It tells you the likely causes, the evidence that tells them apart, what that stage still allows and what to try next. Some failures refire and the book says which. Some never do, and the book says that too, so you do not spend a second firing on a pot that cannot be saved.

One last thing

The pot is the evidence. Keep the book where the pot is.

A pot that came out wrong is a complete record of how it was made. Read in the right order, it tells you exactly which habit to change. The next one from the same hands comes out better, and the one after that.

Read it free first

Plus $8.95 shipping in the US. 35 of 35 copies left.