Tumbling Broken Pottery

I retired my small tumbler from rocks, but I still plan to use it for other things, like broken pottery.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:10 Breaking Bowls
03:26 First Check
04:57 Second Check
06:30 Results
07:17 Attempt 2
09:31 Final Results

[@w.a.whipple]

Thanks for sharing your experiment! I'm about to try this myself; spent the afternoon being smashy. I think one of the reasons you got the results you did from the first batch was because some of the pieces were more curved, which meant they were perhaps scraping into the other shards more. (Just a guess!)

[@LizRocksAndStuff]

That's a good possibility. I'd love to hear how your experiment goes!

[@w.a.whipple]

@@LizRocksAndStuff So far I've done one bowl (pretty hard ceramic that took a while to get worn to where I wanted it, almost 3 days?), a much softer mug with a nice relief pattern that I almost scoured away because I let it go too long, a very textured glass bowl that still has a little bit of gloss (may run some if the larger pieces some more, haven't decided), and I'm doing a ceramic vase I smashed now that had a crackle glaze -- I wasn't sure how that glaze would do in the tumbler, but it seems fine.
All have been run with a combination of the material and grit plus stones, adding or removing rocks as needed to fill the barrel, adding more grit if I don't see the results I want after checking it after a few hours. :D I don't really know what I'm basing any of this on other than what I've picked up from others (like yourself) and educated guesswork. Other than the almost-ruined mug pieces, I'm having some pretty good successes. Thanks again for your insights!