I had to stop using my koto bioshinai on monday because it was splintering a bit on some of the slat edges. I've now fixed the shinai so I'll be back to using it I hope on Friday.

The process of sanding it down, oiling it, and retying all the leather bits can be time consuming, took me a good 40min or so to carefully do it to remove as much bamboo bits as I needed but not more than that. I used a emery nailfile to sand off the splinters, and then rubbed it down with some cloth before oiling it lightly with some machine oil. Putting it back together was a slight challenge with the slats to fit together after selecting the best condition slats to be on the cutting edges. It now looks fine, and I can use it again until those slats die. I'm still jobless and a tad poor, therefore I can't really afford to get too many new shinais. I have expensive tastes so the shinais that I would love to get are waaaaay too expensive for a while yet methinks. Boo. I guess I'll have to get standard shinais or something...... I have two, so hopefully they will survive long enough for me to afford new ones.