I had been on a lonely journey backwards engineering Japanese techniques for many years. When out of  The blue Ford Hallam contacted me. I had never heard of him before. I thought this guy must be full of bull-lony.  Most people that go out of there way to tell you how much they know about a topic usually are. After a few exchanges I came to realize that Ford was the real deal and I had just struck gold. Eventually I flew the thousands of miles to visit him. We did an intense training session that lasted three weeks. During that time we got to know each other and I worked my tail off executing his carefully planned lessons. He asked for nothing in return and even sent me home with some tools and supplies to help me along.

The lessons were carefully incorporated into three different Tsuba projects. To prepare for this Ford sent me three templates and specs to create three blanks ahead of time. One each in Iron, Shakudo, and Shibuichi. I had no idea what he had planned for them.
Ford and his family picked me up at the airport and the next day I was hard at work. We started with a practice plate then got right into Iron plate. It did not take long to get through the basic metal work and then a patina was started. While that developed we started the Shakudo Tsuba and finally the Shibuichi Tsuba. Between the three Tsuba I was overloaded with information. I made careful notes and took lots of pictures. Ford demonstrated some additional techniques and talked about many more. It was all a bit much for 21 days and it took a few years to really digested all of the skills and information I was Exposed to. I can easily spend the rest of my life exploring and refining these techniques, but Fords generosity advanced my skills by a decades compared to wandering path I was on before.

The resulting Tsuba from my time with Ford.

If you want to know more about Ford and his work you can read about him HERE