Hello,
I am starting to notice that when I practice bachizuke, the area where I do sukui in the maebachi position, the edge of the bachigawa is getting pretty badly frayed. It’s getting to the point where when I do sukui, my bachi’s tip is getting caught in a pocket of where it is torn.
I was wondering if I were to replace my bachigawa with a new one, would I just peel it off or just place a new one over it? In case it makes any difference, my shamisen is skinned with fibersen.
Howdy Mr. C!
This is a rather frustrating aspect of bachigawa. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it has happened to me.
Peeling off the bachigawa can tear away the fibers from a natural skin. However, Fibersen should be just fine. To be safe, I will send an email to Nitta san now, and ask his advice on the matter.
Excellent question! 
Would it be possible to send me a picture of the fraying area?
Sure no problem
Oh wow, that’s a serious amount of shredding.
Thanks, I’ll send this to him and let you know.
I just got a response from Nitta san. He said that fixing it is simply a matter of replacing it, and it can be removed just by hand. No tools necessary. I’d still pull it off slowly, just to be safe. 
I do wonder how necessary a bachigawa is, considering it is synthetic skin. It can’t hurt though.
My teacher actually replaced my bachikawa for me recently. He used a straight edge to help with pulling it off.
As for the utility of a bachikawa, it’s not just to protect the skin, but it actually helps make playing easier. It’s a slipperier surface than the skin itself, which makes playing easier.
Before I saw your picture, I was going to suggest placing the new bachikawa a little further below the 3-no-ito to give you more leeway in your sukui, but it looks like it’s already pretty far down there. If you’re scraping there, I think you might be strumming a little bit too much with your playing. Your downstroke should be directly into the skin, and your sukui should come directly from the skin. When done properly, you shouldn’t really be scraping at all and the bachikawa won’t get pulled up.
Are you strumming at all in your bachi technique, or is it something else?
@Kyle: Thank you for the help and finding out for me
@Jamie: I am sure the problem was worsened because I do strum too much while playing among other things. When I would move from ushirobachi to maebachi my arm would be moving over before the bachi was off the skin and I would be scraping it over into position. I believe that’s how I initially started to open up the tear.