My Top 5 Must Have Tools For Throwing Pottery On The Wheel
Pottery is an art form that acquires many, many tools. There are different tools for different stages of the process too-throwing, trimming and turning, firing, and more. Over the years I’ve collected many different tools from different teachers, shopping at my local pottery supply store (hey, Davens!), and even from household objects lying around the house.
When throwing pottery on the wheel, I must have the following 5 tools. That’s not to say I only use these 5 tools, but that is to say, you can take away all my other tools, but please, please don’t take these 5.
Sponge
This one is fairly obvious, but I’d be absolutely lost without it! I actually originally learned to pull the walls of my form without a sponge, using just my hands, but as I continued practicing and growing, I started to try pulling walls of my forms with a sponge in my outer hand. I found this helped me pull much more even walls and have used a sponge ever since. There are other needs for the sponge too, like compressing the bottom of your pot, soaking up excess water, and smoothing out the clay.
Mudtools Polymer Rib
This is a tool I discovered a few years back and have used on each and every pot I’ve thrown since. I believe one of my teachers at my local pottery studio turned me onto this one. It’s the red “Mudtools Polymer Rib”. You can get this at any clay supply store, online, or even on Amazon. They have different hardness levels but I’ve found that the red one has exactly the flexibility I prefer. I use it to help shape the pot as I am throwing, bending it to form curves and shapes. I also use it to smooth out the walls once I’m finished with the form, leaving it with a nice perfectly smooth feel. Outside of the sponge, this is my most used tool–it comes in handy while trimming too, but that’s for another post.
Wooden Rib
This wooden rib is from a beginners pottery tool set and probably the first rib I ever acquired when I signed up for my very first pottery class back in 2018. I still use it each time I sit down at the wheel. It may be basic and I’m sure there are much more advanced and better ribs out there (I have quite the collection myself) but this is tried and true for me. If it ain’t broke, why fix it. :) I use this mostly when I’d like a straight-walled form and also to shape the form in ways I can’t do as easily with the flexible Mudtools rib.
Wooden Knife Tool
I’m going to apologize in advance because I don’t actually know if this pottery tool has a more formal name but a version of it is in the beginner pottery toolkit linked above. This one was given to me by a teacher of mine and I’ve held onto it. When I’m throwing a form on the wheel, I like to shape and remove excess clay from the foot of the pot as much as possible so that I can make trimming quicker and easier. This also helps with reclaiming clay since I can just pull the wet clay out and let it dry as much as needed vs having to rehydrate it. I use this tool to remove that excess clay and shape the bottom of my pot as much as possible during this stage.
Chamois Cloth
This is pronounced “shammy” and it’s official use is for drying cars. However, the pottery world has claimed it as ours! When you wet this cloth, it and use it on the rim of your pot, it creates a super smooth and rounded rim that is just so nice to touch and look at. I use this cloth on every single on of my pots for achieve a beautiful rim. You can find these at any auto dealer store or now they sell them pre-cut on Amazon just for the pottery people.
There you have it, my must-have tools to throw a pot on the wheel! I couldn’t live without these top 5 tools and there’s no pots that have been thrown by me that these tools haven’t touched. (Well, maybe my very first ones.) I hope this helps you when choosing and deciding which tools you prefer to throw with. Each potter has their own preferences so if you ask another potter, you’ll get a different answer. But if you’re just starting out, it’s always helpful to have a place to start. My best advice is to try different tools out and see what sticks. You’ll find your 5 must haves in your own time. Happy potting! 😀
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