Craftsmanship in Wood

I recall that Toshio Odate advises oiling the dai in his book. As I recall, he taped up the blade slot on the underside of the dai and filled the blade cavity with linseed oil then waited for the oil to seep out the ends. If you use boiled linseed oil the dai will not be tacky after a week.

I've never tried it myself but I use the same method on knife handles and get the best result of any treatment I've used. Knife handles and kanna dai are very different beasts though.

What I forgot to say about the knife handles is that when the linseed oil completely saturates the wood, and then hardens, the result is much the same as stabilized wood which uses basically the same treatment, but with epoxy.