A leather buff, in jewellery and lapidary practice, is a wheel or stick faced with shaped leather and charged with a fine polishing compound, used for the final polishing pass on metal jewellery components and for the final polish on certain coloured stones. The leather face takes the polishing compound (commonly red or white rouge for metal, cerium oxide or alumina for some stones) and presents it to the work as a yielding, slightly elastic surface that conforms to small contours without cutting away material in the way a felt or muslin wheel would.

For metal work, leather buffs are usually mounted on a polishing motor as a felt-backed leather wheel, or on a flexible-shaft handpiece as a small leather mop or stick attachment. They are charged with rouge by holding the bar against the spinning surface for a few seconds, and applied to the work at moderate speed and light pressure. The result is a deep mirror polish that recovers brilliance even on detailed contours where a stiffer wheel would deposit compound unevenly.

For lapidary, leather buffs are used principally on softer stones (turquoise, opal, lapis lazuli, malachite, certain serpentine varieties) where the slight give of the leather face avoids the under-cutting and edge-rounding that a stiff wax or tin lap can cause on these materials. The leather is charged with the appropriate fine oxide, and the work is presented at low speed under light pressure.