I agree with boomer. I think Phonetek and I are kind've in agreement...it's just semantics about smooth versus consistent.

Where Phonetek seems to go off the rails is where he talks about how applying "quicker" or "harder" sanding with one level of pad will result in a different number of a surface. Thats simply not how the surfacing works.

JAnderson is right...that in woodworking, very low grit sanding is often done to roughly remove material. You'll notice that bowling ball grits don't go nearly down to that low of a number. I use a 180 from time to time...but thats as low as you can get. Most surfacing is done at 500-4000. Meanwhile, woodworking tends to use grits in the 20-320 range. A sanded surface on a piece of wood is essentially a very rough surface on a bowling ball.

It's not worth getting into the weeds about. Like I said early on in my post...98% of bowlers are throwing a ball with a 3000-4000 surface because whatever they got OOB or surfaced their ball to at the start of the season has long been reduced to 3000-4000. And, while hitting it with an Abralon pad by hand might buy you a more aggressive game....it'll be back to 3000-4000 by Games 2 and 3. Same thing for polishing. So, as Rob was commenting...it's much ado about nothing...at the end of the day.

It's one of those weird ironies in bowling...that the number one effect on when a ball hooks is surface...proven fact...yet probably 92-98% of bowlers are throwing about the same surface each night.