NEW CUSTOM INLAID FINGER BUTTONS!

By Dave Monette

Since the last webpage NEWSLETTER update a year ago, players we work with have continued to order custom inlaid finger buttons for their new and used Monette instruments - and we love making them! I personally do this work myself at my home lapidary studio. The latest round of inlays have included some of the most outrageous new and unusual designs and materials to date.

For Ron Miles SATTVA in low G we finally made up some METEORITE inlays... perfect for Ron Miles! This material came from a meteorite that landed in Eastern Europe, and I bought a thin slab of this material - which is mostly iron - at the Tucson Rock and Mineral show earlier this winter. Our first extra-terrestrial finger buttons!

Rashawn Ross from the Dave Matthews Band wanted some spikey mosaic buttons made in his high school colors of gold and blue, so we used tiger eye and lapis spikes on a bed of sleeping beauty turquoise - the color of the water around the Caribbean island of St. Thomas where he grew up.

We made the first set of curved element mosaic finger button inlays for Dennis Caron in Boston. These are made with deep blue lapis, light blue sleeping beauty turquise, and white opal made into a doublet to help amplify the opal’s natural, multi-color pinfire. These were extremely time consuming to make, given the precise cuts and fit on the curved elements. Thanks to Dennis and Marsha for inspiring a new design!

Other recent buttons - all requested by the clients and custom made to order, include solid sleeping beauty turquoise - a relatively inexpensive and beautiful favorite, multi-colored mookaite from the Mooka Creek in Western Australia, the red white and blue mosaic made for a client near New Orleans, the BMW 2 made with sleeping beauty instead of the white opal I used in the original design, and matrix opal - more organic looking and less expensive than the cut opal you see in our other opal inlays. We also recently made a set of pink sugilite and turquoise buttons for a dear friend and jazz playing client in Israel, and another set of solid white opal inlays like I originally made a few years ago for Adam Rapa’s P3S Bb.

The opal finger buttons are always a favorite, however the price of the Australian Lightning Ridge rough material suitable for inlay make these extremely expensive. Finding this raw material is hit and miss to say the least... but when we can get it we can make some outrageous inlays! The cost of this opal in rough, uncut form can be $200 a gram wholesale. That is $5,600 an ounce - and at that price in that condition it doesn’t look that much better than the colored gravel in your driveway! With this in mind, several of the sets we have made out of this material have been mosaic sets, as it is a little easier to find smaller pieces of this material that can then be combined, cut and fit to make the individual inlays.

Fingerbutton Slideshow with Dave Monette

If you have any questions or special requests for custom inlaid finger buttons, bottom valve caps or slide ring inlays for your Monette trumpet, just email or call the shop and we will be happy to work with you.