Coil building is a hand-building method where you roll clay into long ropes and stack them, joining each coil to the one below, to build up the walls of a pot. It allows forms of almost any size or shape.
What Is Coil Building?
Coiling is one of the oldest ways of making pottery, used long before the wheel and still used for very large pots today. Coils can be rolled by hand on a table or extruded, then laid in rings or a spiral and pressed or smeared together inside and out so they bond into one wall.
The joins are the weak points. Scoring and slipping each coil, or firmly smearing clay across the join on at least one side, prevents cracks as the piece dries. Letting the lower coils firm up slightly before adding more stops a tall pot sagging under its own weight.
Coil pots can be left with the coils showing as decoration or smoothed into a seamless surface with a rib. Working on a banding wheel makes it much easier to keep the form even as you go round. Coiling is usually one of the first techniques taught in a hand-building class, because it builds a feel for joins and wall thickness.
This pottery glossary entry from Le Studio Art Space is general educational content. Always follow the clay, glaze and kiln makers’ data for your own materials and equipment.