What I Actually Use From Pottery Hacks Weekly
I've been going through Pottery Hacks Weekly since it first showed up in my inbox about three years ago. It started as something I skimmed, then became a reference I actually return to when I'm stuck on a problem at the wheel or in the kiln room. The format is simple — one issue per week, usually a handful of short tips, a technique breakdown, and sometimes a material recommendation. Nothing fancy. But the stuff that lands is specific enough to matter. The most useful part isn't the quick tips. It's the deep dives. There was an issue last spring that went into glaze fit issues with cobalt staining at cone 6, and how to adjust your silica content without wrecking the melt. That kind of thing doesn't show up in most beginner guides. It's the kind of detail you pick up after you've cracked a dozen mugs and want to stop guessing.
Where to Get Pottery Hacks Weekly
You can find it at potteryhacksw eekly.com. The free tier gives you one tip per week. The paid subscription, which runs about $5 a month, unlocks the full archive and the longer technique articles. I pay for the subscription. The archive alone is worth it — I go back to it constantly when I'm preparing a new glaze batch or troubleshooting a firing issue. There's also a downloadable PDF companion for each issue now. They bundle the weekly tips into a reference sheet you can keep on your studio wall. I printed three of them and taped them up. One by the wheel, one by the glaze shelf, one near the kiln. It sounds overkill until you're mid-process and remember a tip you read two weeks ago but forgot the details of. Here's what I learned the hard way about using it effectively. Don't just read the issues chronologically. Go into the archive and pull the ones relevant to what you're working on right now. If you're starting to throw larger pieces and your walls keep collapsing, there's a section on moisture content and centering pressure that addresses that directly. Reading it in order wastes your time.
Another thing nobody warns you about. Some of the glaze recipes in the earlier issues use materials that have changed formulation since they were written. U.S. Silica changed their product line a few years back, and a couple of the base recipes reference the old version. I caught this after a batch of what should have been a clear glaze came out cloudy. The fix was adjusting the flint ratio slightly. The workaround is to check the comments section on each archived issue — people regularly post material substitutions that actually worked for them. I keep a spreadsheet of those notes. It's saved me more than once. The main limitation I have to be honest about is consistency. The quality varies by issue. Some weeks the writer is clearly still experimenting and the tip doesn't hold up in practice. Other weeks it's spot-on. I've stopped treating every suggestion as gospel and started testing small batches first. A five-gram test tile takes fifteen minutes and tells you whether a tip is worth applying to a full piece. For beginners, the best entry point is the "Wheel Basics That Actually Work" series from the first six months. It's where the foundational habits are broken down without the usual fluff — how to wedge properly, why your clay centers differently when it's been sitting in the bag too long, things like that. After that, the glaze chemistry section is where the real value is, but you need a basic understanding of what flux and silica do before those articles make sense. If you're brand new, start with the wheel content and circle back later.
Get the Full Details
I wish they covered more about kiln maintenance and element replacement schedules. That's genuinely the most expensive part of running a studio and the least covered topic in pottery media right now. Maybe it'll come up eventually. Until then, I cross-reference their firing tips with the kiln manuals I've already worn out. If you're serious about making pots regularly, it's worth the subscription. If you're just dipping your toe in, the free issues will give you a sense of whether the advice aligns with how you work. Either way, download the archive PDFs. Your future self will thank you when you're standing in front of a cracked glaze or a collapsed wall and need the answer immediately.
