Hi, David, Buckskin is an organic material, is built up one layer at a time and does, like wood, have a grain. Some more obvious than others, but does have a grain. After checking several Yamaha shanks you appear to be correct, but, and here is the important point, they use VERY tight grained skins. Reversing grain on much of the skin available to us would be counter productive. Steinway and Renner shanks have the grain oriented to assist the jack getting back into possition for a repitition. I think I would glue the new knuckles in to reflect original manufacturer preferences. Thanks for the new information! Newton nhunt@rci.rutgers.edu
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