Basic Tools Used For Pottery

Chamois
Chamois skin is great for compressing the edges of your pottery. The skin can also be used to smooth any pottery ware that has a rough feel.

Towels
Towels are a necessity in pottery. When you are throwing, it is ideal to wipe your hands occasionally as well as placing the towel on your lap to avoid ruining your clothes.

Potters Needles
Potters needles are very long and a little on the heavy side. They are used to trim the top of your pottery ware while it is on the wheel. The needles are also used for scoring slabs of clay.

Cut-Off Wires
Cut-off wires have a wooden handle on each end and is used to cut large clumps of clay. The wire also helps to remove any excess clay that remains on the wheel.

Scrappers and Ribs
These two tools are excellent for smoothing pottery ware and shaping them while they are on the wheel.

Fettling Knives
This particular style of knife is used to cut slabs of clay or to remove the fettle of your pottery ware. The fettle is the small ridge of material that is left where the pieces of the mold join together.

Ribbon Tools
Ribbon tools are great from trimming any green-ware and to help in hand-building your pottery. Although these tools work great for trimming, they are to fragile to be used during the throwing process.

Wooden Modeling Tools
These particular tools are also ideal for any hand-building projects. They also work great for any trimming that needs to be done.

Calipers
Calipers are used to measure the inner and outer dimensions of pottery ware. This comes in handy for projects such as jars and saucers.

Box
Having a box to carry all of your pottery tools is ideal for anyone that is taking pottery classes or teaching classes is different areas.  It's worth including some accessories such as transfers for ceramics or ceramic decals which will improve the decorative value of your projects.

Here is an interesting survival video on how to gather clay and make clay tools and implements to help you eat and drink: