Pressing pads are soft felt or leather cushions used at the jeweller's bench to support gemstones, mountings, and metalwork during operations that apply pressure — setting a stone, burnishing a bezel, forming a prong, or shaping the body of a piece. The pad sits between the workpiece and the rigid bench surface, distributing the applied force evenly and preventing the kind of point-loading that would chip a stone, scratch a polished surface, or deform a delicate metal element. Pressing pads are among the simplest items in a goldsmith's kit and among the most quietly important.

Construction and materials

The standard pressing pad is a thick disc or rectangle of dense wool felt, typically 6 to 12 millimetres thick, with a smooth top surface and a stable base. Felt pads are available in graded densities; the harder felts are used for general bench work where rigid support is needed without scratching, and the softer felts are used for finishing and burnishing operations where the pad must give under pressure to follow the contour of the piece.

Leather pads — typically a thick saddle leather or vegetable-tanned cowhide — provide a denser, less compressible cushion suitable for stone-setting work where the seating force must be substantial but the underlying support cannot be allowed to deflect. Specialist pads include heat-resistant felts for use under soldering operations, lead-core pads for hammer work, and ring-mandrel pads contoured to match the inside curve of a ring shank.

Use in stone setting

The principal application is stone setting. When a setter seats a stone into a mounting, the underside of the piece rests on the pressing pad, and the setting force is applied to the prong tips or bezel rim from above. The pad supports the underside without allowing the table or pavilion of the stone to contact the rigid bench surface — a contact that would risk chipping the gem under setting pressure. The pad's even compliance also distributes the reaction force across the underside of the mounting, preventing localised stress at any single point.

For bezel setting, the pad supports the inverted ring while the setter burnishes the bezel rim down onto the stone with a hand burnisher or pneumatic hammer-handpiece. For prong setting, the pad supports the ring during the final closing of the prongs over the crown of the stone. In both cases, the pad's role is structural — providing controlled compliance under the workpiece.

Use in burnishing and polishing

Burnishing operations — the polishing of metal by friction with a burnishing tool — also rely on pressing pads. The pad supports the piece in the optimum orientation and prevents the burnishing pressure from marking the underside or back of the workpiece against the bench. For ring shanks, the pad allows the inside of the ring to be burnished without contact between the outside of the ring and the bench surface.

For wax-modelling work and hand-formed pieces, pads serve a similar role: supporting the work-in-progress without marking finished surfaces. Wax tools press into the wax against the pad's resistance, and the wax model can be repositioned freely without scratching against the rigid bench.

Care and replacement

Pressing pads accumulate fragments — small pieces of metal, abrasive grit from polishing, occasional small stones — that can mark the pad's surface and contaminate later work. Routine cleaning of the working surface with a soft brush, periodic vacuum cleaning of the underside, and replacement when the pad is heavily contaminated or compressed beyond its working compliance are the standard maintenance tasks. Pads from major bench-tool suppliers are inexpensive and replacement is more practical than attempting to recover a heavily worn pad.

Further reading

• GIA Gems & Gemology — bench tool reference
• International Gem Society — stone setting reference
• GIA — jewellery manufacturing reference