I think he's asking something a little different and something was curious about also. I recently did two balls 4K fast (well, one I did 3000 as the last step instead of 4000). After X number of games when the reaction starts to change, to get it back to 4K fast, can you just hit it with a 4000 pad, or do you need to go back through all the steps? Starting at 180 is time consuming and will eventually remove a fair amount of cover stock if it's done over and over.
I guess if you bowl a ton of games without touching the cover, I believe lane wear and tear will take a cover to about 800 grit. If that's the case, I assume you'd pretty much need to start the whole process again. But if you bowl 20-40 games and wanted to just touch up the cover, is just hitting the cover with a 4000 pad sufficient? Or would it be more accurate to do 2000/4000 or 1000/2000/4000, or?