My ironing board is a commercial mechanism that is meant to fold up and be put away-mine never gets put away because I use it to iron clothing or quilt every day. I have a commercial pad that is about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick and is quite solid. It is not squishy. I covered that with a layer of 80/20 batting and a piece of muslin. I made the cover out of duck cloth which is a canvas type of fabric. It makes a padded surface that works well for all types of ironing or pressing. When the cover gets old, scorchy and looks ugly I make a new cover. If the surface is too soft it is easy to have pressing distortion, especially bias edges or seams.