How to Collar in Clay — A Beginner's Guide @floriangadsby

Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

In this weekend's video I'm covering collaring, constricting, choking, essentially a technique for moving clay around on the wheel, specifically from wide to narrow, like you may find on the neck of a tall vase. Yet, it does go beyond that, in fact collaring the clay in is something you'll find yourself doing all the time when throwing on the potter's wheel. After centring, when pulling up cylinders and finally when doing more delicate shaping towards the top of a pot. Fundamentally it's one of those basic skills that allows you to throw more complex shapes and I hope this tutorial does a good job of showing you precisely how I go about collaring in when throwing pottery.

Here are some other videos about collaring in I recommend:
youtube.com/watch?v=umtwyBcYhiE&t
youtube.com/watch?v=J5T688fmJYI&t
youtube.com/watch?v=Kur-VHMMLIY&t
youtube.com/watch?v=QMROAULTSz4 (amazing)

📚 • You'll find many more guides on how to centre and pull up the walls of clay here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2WJhtTF0eGhQwf8g2LHcom_KrvJpH_JT

🔺 • How to use a chuck to trim bottle forms, and others: youtu.be/_ishJr-UGfU

📖 • ORDER MY BOOK: geni.us/bymyhands

📢 • Find out much more about my work here: https://linktr.ee/floriangadsby

⏱ • Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
0:49 - The IMPORTANCE of properly wedged clay
1:50 - When I collar in first
3:12 - Why you need as much contact as possible
4:30 - Collaring in cylinders to keep them straight
7:36 - Collaring in necks for vases/bottles
9:58 - Why leaving a thick rim is important for collaring
12:23 - Collaring in bowls
13:50 - Collaring in by pressing from the outside
16:47 - Clean up

*I throw using both a Rohde HMT 500 & 600 potter's wheel and fire using Rohde kilns too, the electric is a TE-200 and the gas kiln is a KG-340.
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How to Collar in Clay — A Beginners Guide

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