...the shortlist was culled down to a final three; The Nine Bob Hog, The Railway Collective and Crooked Howlet Designs. I was fairly fond of the 'Nine Bob Hog' - a little rendition on the phrase "nine bob note". I had always wanted an animal or a creature or the sort, in the company name, for logo and branding reasons. So we brought "Hog" into the phrase and slung that name into the running. Railway Collective was a front runner at the time, with some backing among the lads, but I am proper stoked I didn't run with this option - I'll happily palm this off to the Sunday arvo blogger, critiquing different hostels in Prague. 

So the logo design would be the deciding factor. Howlet was added to the original inspiration for a name, The Crooked Billet (a pub in the UK which was our local watering hole during a trip prior to the conception). Needing an animal for the brands logo, I swapped out Billet for Howlet, which is a poetic term for an Owl. It had been a while since the last 'school folder Stussy logo', but I somewhat new my way around a Feber Castell and wanted the original artwork to be mine. So I got to work sketching the design, feeding off I guess you could call it 'neo-traditional' tattoo style of bold black work, pronounced lines and symmetry - as I felt this would best translate to a lot of marketing forms we'd use, as it would be easily simplified and recognised. 

Once the Owl was born, that nudged Crooked Howlet Designs into the lead. 

It would have been a short 3-4mins after the name was born, when the mispronunciations started dribbling out... shit. It was as if, the second I gave the word a capital letter and put it in among logo, people forgot the other uses for the word,"that crooked pipe....a crooked cop...", instead it would be "Crock'd Designs...Crook Designs...Crucked Designs". That Nine Bob Hog brand name started sounding real good, but was too late. That being said, once branded, good chance it would have been pronounced "The Nine Bob Hug".
To pay homage to the close second-runner, this weekly rambling has been named The Nine Bob Blog newsletter.

Since the conception of the name, we've never really settle on a Howlet ring. Plenty of design ideas have been lobbed around, but nothing has stuck. 'Bout time, we right this. Over the coming weeks, the Howlet ring, will be in design production. Feel free to send us your thoughts on the piece, how'd you like to see this ring come to life and we'll keep that in mind!


- Ryan

What is the Bugle? Our first entry, this Friday, will explain the origins of the name, The Nine Bob Bugle. Aside from that, what can you expect in among the ramblings? 

Any creativity that hasn't been carved into a ring, put into a new design or marketing concept, is usually trying to find a vehicle to rear its head. To avoid this coming out in a violent spout of artistic debauchery, I felt the weekly newsletter would keep the ferret from the apple...so to speak.  

Somewhere between a blog and a Insta caption, I want The Bugle to be quick 5-10min read, every Friday, to give you a brief digression from the daily grind and some insight on the movements at CHD. 

We'll have entries from those who work in and around the label, even some posts from any of you, but primarily you'll be hearing from me, the owner and founder of CHD. 

I'll run you through the early days of CHD, how I got into jewellery and then launched the brand. From it's conception to where we are today.

I'll flesh out the production process that we use at Crooked Howlet Designs to give you a proper insight on what is going into each piece and equip you with the tools to design, create and finish your own ring.

I’ll give you all the info, as well as current places to purchase everything you need and point you in the right direction of the services we trust and use. Essentially, after this, you’ll be gunning for a shot at the title.

Interviews with our resident monthly designers, such as Neil Preston and our CHD artist, Nick Potts. 

We'll keep you on the pulse with all the new designs we'll be producing and any up coming promotions or events. 

Stay on it.

- Ryan

There's a reality to 925 Sterling Silver, that is the constant dog fight for jewellers and silver-wearers...keeping its high luster shine. The raw nature of 925 Sterling Silver, is the 7.5% of base metals in the alloy, that will react with sulphur in the air and skin, which will tarnish your ring over time. 

With this issue being inevitable, companies have brought out a litany of different, (essentially useless) polishing kits. Anything short of getting a professional jeweller to give your piece a polish, you're going to get fairly minimal results. 

So here's what I'll do - I'm going to bring you up to speed with what we'd do as jewellers to give your ring a spruce up. Whether it's 10 days or 10 years old, this is how you'll bring your ring back into his early days. The fountain of youth, for alloy. 

The go to advice for polishing your ring, will be with the polishing cloth that most jewellers, including us, give out with the order. This will still work reasonably well and is great for slowing any further aggressive tarnish. However, it won't rid your piece of any sustained blackened areas.

The ease at which we can give an old ring a quick polish in our studio, with a fairly basic setup, I felt the need to shed some light on this process so you can re-amp the high polish from before your grubby mitts tainted the silver. For those of you who follow these instructions, you'll notice a profoundly different result from ALL the home polishing kits. In this post, I'm going to give you a master run down, on how you can give your 925 a professional polish. I'll even provide everything you need through our online store.

This isn't an overly simplistic, fix-it kit. It will require a little bit of initial run-about. But once you've got the set up, it'll be good for years and you'll be able to give your ring a professional polish before every night out. Personally, with my full set of 925, I'll speedball my bench grinder polishing set-up, every weekend to get them all in top knick. With a Saturday arvo free, you can build your own polishing studio...

So here it is. I'll lay it out nice and simple, then dive in to explain further. You'll need:

• 1 x Bench Grinder
• 1 x Polishing Buff Wheel (Online $5.95)
• 1 x Polishing Compound (Online $7.95)
• Dishwashing Detergent 
• Cloudy Ammonia 
• Old gingivitis riddled toothbrush (or a fresh one)

This is won't set you back any more than $20 and will last you two years. 

If a bench grinder doesn't run in your family, then you need to get that heirloom sorted. You'll have to source one - let Ozito (Bunnings home brand) suit out your polishing studio for around $30. Get a shed. Get industrial. Just be super careful not to ever call it your 'man cave'. 

Stage 1. Set up...

• Remove your grinding stones from the bench grinder.
• Measure up the spindle and find a drill bit, that is slightly smaller (or the same size, this will make sense in the next step).

• Then drill into the centre of your Polishing Wheel. You have two options here; you can either drill almost all the way through and let the tread of the spindle catch the wheel OR drill all the way through and screw your wheel onto the bench grinder - as the grinding stones were set up. 

Stage 2. Now its the polishing...

•  You're going to apply some of your polishing compound to the wheel. It doesn't need much, just a quick touch on the wheel while its spinning (then we can re-apply a little more if need be during polishing).

• Hold your ring tightly, so she doesn't get flung across the room and take someones eye or groin out.
• Then slowly rotate and press your ring into the wheel, rolling the piece to cover all of the surface. Give it a few once-overs, apply a touch more compound and cover over her again. Don't worry about the mess on the ring, it will look like it's getting grubbier from the compound, but you'll see the end result.

Step 3. 
In a bowl, take some hot-boiling water, with a table spoon of cloudy ammonia and dash of dishwashing liquid and drop your ring in. Let it sit for 30 seconds and then give her a good scrub with a tooth brush to remove all the polishing compound. Completely dry off the piece with your polishing cloth or just some good ol' poo tickets (toilet paper). Job, done. 

Things to note:

• If you have some of the blackening detail in certain areas of the rings. For example, on The Canis ring, be careful not to polish those areas too aggressively, as it will remove the black solution. So cover up those sections with your finger, or go lightly there. 
• You will get used to the pressure to apply on the ring, but you will actually be pressing quite firmly against the wheel to let the polishing compound go to work. A reasonably small amount of polishing compound will do the majority of your ring. No need to apply to much!