Splash pan

A splash pan is the wide, shallow catch basin that surrounds the wheel head on most pottery wheels, sitting just below the level where a thrower's hands work. As clay spins and water is used to keep hands and clay lubricated, a fair amount of watery slip flies outward and downward off the piece, and the splash pan is what catches that mess before it lands on the floor, the potter's lap, or the wheel's own motor and electronics underneath.

Beyond simple cleanliness, a good splash pan protects the wheel itself, since slip and water reaching internal moving parts or electrical components over time can cause real damage and shorten a wheel's working life. It also usually functions as a slip trap, letting a potter periodically collect the water and clay that pools there and pour it into a reclaim bucket instead of sending clay solids down a studio drain, where they can build up and eventually clog household plumbing.

Splash pans vary between wheel models in depth, shape, and how easily they detach for cleaning, and a pan that is awkward to remove tends to get cleaned less often, letting clay dry and cake inside it. Checking how a specific wheel's splash pan comes apart, and how it drains, is worth doing before a first purchase, since a design that requires unscrewing several parts just to empty it discourages the regular cleaning that keeps both the pan and the wheel underneath it in good condition.