Making a spindle for winding pickups

Next week we will be making a few single coil pickups for Stratocasters, so I quickly made this simple little spindle tool to help with the job. It was machined this from 15 mm brass stock on the new mini-lathe, which arrived earlier this week. Below is the roughly machined spindle, before cleaning.

The pickup bobbin slips onto the 3mm post, supported by the wide shoulder, and is locked in place by a square of flatwork board, screwed into the side. This prevents the pickup from slipping on the spindle, without interfering with the wire as it is wound on. The barrel was turned down to 8 mm to fit the Meteor coil winder, although it could equally well be used on a power drill chuck.

It will certainly be much quicker and more accurate than screwing the pickup to a block of wood, which was my previous method.