A leather wheel is a buffing wheel, usually mounted on a polishing motor, whose face is constructed from layers of bonded or stitched leather rather than from felt, muslin or stitched cotton. It is used for the final polishing pass on jewellery metalwork and for the polish of softer stones such as turquoise, lapis lazuli and certain opal varieties. The leather face provides a slightly yielding, elastic surface that conforms to small contours, holds polishing compound well, and produces a deep mirror polish without the harder cutting action of a felt wheel.

Leather wheels come in several formats. Solid leather discs, made by laminating circles of vegetable-tanned leather around a central hub, are the traditional form. Stitched leather wheels, made by sewing layers of leather together along a series of concentric stitches, are stiffer and hold their face under heavier work loads. Faced wheels, in which a leather strip is bonded to the rim of a felt or wood core wheel, are the most common form for general bench work because they combine the surface qualities of leather with the dimensional stability of the underlying core.

For metal polishing the wheel is charged with red, white or green rouge depending on the metal and on the desired finish, and run at moderate speed under light pressure. For lapidary work it is charged with cerium oxide or alumina and run at low speed. The wheel is generally cleaned with a cake of buffing-wheel rake or a stiff brush after every polishing session to remove loaded compound, and replaced when the face becomes glazed or shiny enough that fresh compound no longer adheres.