How to make your own pottery ribs and templates

Short answer: you make a rib or template by transferring a full-size pattern onto a flat material (card, 3 mm plywood, rigid plastic or acrylic), cutting it with a craft knife, scroll saw or laser, then sanding the working edge. The hard part isn’t the cutting — it’s getting the pattern right.

A shop-bought rib costs £5–15, and none of them has exactly the curve of your bowl. The good news: making your own takes twenty minutes and costs almost nothing.

Rib, template, profile gauge: what’s the difference?

Three tools that get confused, used at three different moments.

A rib is in constant contact with clay: its edge must be smooth and its material waterproof. A cutting template only sees one pass of a knife: paper or card is fine. A profile gauge works against a wet, spinning wall: it must be rigid and washable.

That difference in use is what dictates the material — not the other way round.

Three tools, three materials, three moments in the process.

Material comparison

What that means in practice:

• Paper and card — unbeatable for testing a shape before committing. But card absorbs water: it swells, warps, and its dimensions change between the first and fifth use. Keep it for dry work.

• Salvaged plastic — the best effort-to-result ratio there is. A food tub lid makes a flexible, washable, free rib you can cut with scissors. It’s what most studios actually use day to day.

• Plywood — the feel of a traditional wooden rib: pleasant in the hand and slightly absorbent, so it drags less. Cut it on a scroll saw, sand it properly, and oil it so it survives washing.

• Acrylic — the choice for throwing profiles: rigid, dimensionally stable, and translucent, so you can see the wall through it as you bring it in.

• Laser — the only way to get the same curve six times, and the only sensible option for multi-angle shapes (faceted forms, boxes).

Method: making a template in 6 steps

1. Get a pattern at the right size

This is the step that decides everything, and paradoxically the one people rush. A beautifully cut template built on a wrong outline is still wrong.

Three ways to do it:

• With compass and ruler, if the shape is simple (a disc, a rectangle).

• By developing it by hand, as soon as there’s a cone, a curve or a facet. You then have to calculate the development, compensate for firing shrinkage and slab thickness (the perimeter is calculated on the neutral fibre, not the outside diameter). It’s doable, it’s slow, and it’s where cylinders that don’t close come from.

• By generating the pattern, entering the finished dimensions you want.

That’s what the Gabarits Céramique tool is for: you enter diameter, height, your shrinkage percentage and your slab thickness, and you get the corrected pattern back as a full-size A4 PDF (with a 100 mm control mark) or as an SVG — the format laser cutters expect.

👉 [Generate my pattern for free](https://app.gabarits-ceramique.com/)

2. Print at 100%

In the print dialog: scale 100%, never “fit to page”. Then measure the control mark with a metal ruler: if it isn’t exactly 100 mm, your template is off by a few percent — which means several millimetres on a large piece.

For patterns bigger than A4, print the pages and tape them together following the registration marks.

3. Transfer onto your material

Three techniques, in order of accuracy:

• Glue it straight on — a glue stick across the whole back of the paper, pressed onto the plastic or plywood. Cut through the paper. This is the most faithful method.

• Pin-pricking — push a needle through the key points of the outline, then join them up.

• Tracing round it with a marker — fastest, least accurate (the width of the line is already 1 mm).

4. Cut

• Paper / card / thin plastic: craft knife against a metal ruler for straight lines, scissors for curves.

• Thick plastic / acrylic: an acrylic scoring knife (score several times, then snap) or a scroll saw at low speed — too fast and the acrylic melts and re-welds behind the blade.

• Plywood: scroll saw, or a jigsaw with a fine blade for large formats.

• Laser: send the SVG. Tell your makerspace the material thickness, and check the file is genuinely 1:1 in millimetres.

⚠️ For cutting templates, keep the whole line: cut down the middle of it, not inside or outside, or you’ll systematically lose 1 mm per side.

Pattern glued to the back: you cut straight through the paper.

5. Sand the working edge

Non-negotiable for a rib or a profile: work the edge with fine sandpaper (240 then 400 grit), holding the piece flat. A rough edge leaves streaks on the wall; a sharp edge cuts the clay instead of smoothing it.

Very slightly break the corners on the side that touches the clay — a few passes is enough.

6. Label and store

Write on every tool in permanent marker: the shape, the target finished dimension and the shrinkage rate used (“bowl Ø14 finished · 12%”). Without that, a template found six months later is unusable: you no longer know which clay it was calculated for.

Drill a hole and hang them up: stored flat in a drawer, plywood warps.

Every template carries its finished size and the shrinkage it was calculated for.

Handmade or generated: which should you choose?

This isn’t a physical-versus-digital debate — the two combine. The real question is: where does the outline come from?

In short: draw by hand what can be drawn with a ruler, and generate anything that needs a development. Then cut it in whichever material suits the job — the pattern is the same, only the substrate changes.

👉 [Generate a pattern from my dimensions (A4 PDF or SVG)](https://app.gabarits-ceramique.com/) — free, nothing to install.

Frequently asked questions

What can I make a pottery rib out of?

A rigid plastic food tub lid is the best starting point: free, washable, flexible, and it cuts with scissors. For a hard rib, use 3 mm plywood, sanded and then oiled.

Can I make a template out of cardboard?

Yes for a cutting template used a few times, dry. No for a rib or a throwing profile: card absorbs water, swells and loses its dimensions on first wet contact.

How thick should acrylic be for a profile gauge?

2 to 3 mm: rigid enough not to flex against the wall, thin enough to cut with an acrylic scoring knife.

How do I print a template at full size?

Set the scale to 100% (never “fit to page”) and check the 100 mm control mark on the sheet with a ruler before cutting.

What file format do laser cutters need?

SVG, at 1:1 scale in millimetres. The tool exports it directly, so you don’t have to redraw the shape in vector software.

Do I need a different template for each clay body?

Yes, as soon as the shrinkage changes: a template calculated for a stoneware at 12% won’t give the same finished pot in an earthenware at 6%. Which is why you write the rate on the tool.

A good template is a good outline on the right material. Generate the first, choose the second — and keep your twenty minutes for the clay.

👉 [Create my template now](https://app.gabarits-ceramique.com/)

*Read next: How to calculate your clay’s shrinkage rate · Throwing in batches: 5 tips for making identical mugs*