Place a piece of leather or matte board in the bottom of your lap
tray. This will aid you in cleaning the sweeps out of your lap tray.
Pick up the leather by the corners and dump the sweeps into the
container. This also helps protect stones from the hard metal bottom
of the lap tray when accidentally dropped. Brad Simon CMBJ
Brad,
This is also a great place to recycle those old mouse pads from your
computer. I’m always replacing mine when they get dirty. Try placing
one in your lap tray when setting stones. Saves a lot of chipped
tanzanites…
They also work great under your steel bench block to absorb sound,
and keep the block in one place. Makes a nice mat to hammer on when
doing light forming, too.
I keep one next to my polishing hood, to place jewelry on while
polishing. Doesn’t scratch the jewelry, and I can carry the whole
thing over to the ultrasonic when I’m done.
Try gluing one to the bench pin on the wax bench. I like the soft
surface, and the wax dust blows off easily.
I can find so many uses for these old mouse pads that I can’t seem to
get them dirty fast enough. I often have to resort to accepting the
free ones with advertising on them, or the old Pokemon mouse pads
that nobody seems to want any more 
Doug Zaruba