Originally Posted by
Canaboo
I noticed that the old Al road dropouts Nova used to supply had the "grain" running in no particular pattern. Not sure how they are cut from the plate though.
They probably cut them out of a sheet of aluminium and so have a pattern that crams as many as possible onto a square or rectangular sheet of whatever dimensions they get from their supplier. This means rotating them all over the place like a sort of game of Tetris.