Clay Cutter

Cutting a pot without breaking it

The Clay Cutter uses a clipping plane — a mathematical half-space that discards everything on one side of it. Move the plane and you see the interior of the form in real time, which is the digital equivalent of cutting a test pot in half on the bandsaw.

Why this matters more than it sounds

Almost every structural failure in a fired pot traces back to wall thickness. A wall that varies from 4 mm to 11 mm around the same rim will dry unevenly, and uneven drying is the leading cause of cracking and warping. You cannot see that from the outside. A section shows it immediately.

How the numbers are calculated

• Wall thickness is sampled at 64 points around the section, measuring the distance between the inner and outer profile at each one. Minimum, maximum and average are reported.
• Uniformity score is 100 minus the coefficient of variation of those 64 samples, scaled. Above 85 is production quality; below 60 means the wall needs work.
• Base thickness and cavity depth come from the section directly — the vertical distances at the axis.
• Internal volume integrates the inner profile, so it tells you what the pot will actually hold.

Try these experiments

1. Load the Mug preset and read the uniformity score. Then move the cutting plane up and down and watch how the wall thins toward the rim.
2. Switch to the Plate preset. Plates have the worst base-to-wall ratio of any common form — check the base thickness figure.
3. Tilt the cut angle to 30 ° and look at what the section reveals about the foot. An angled cut exposes the transition from base to wall, which is where cracks usually start.