Glow Plug element winding

The glow plug elements were wound on miniature spring winding machine specifically built for that purpose. It had several dies and mandrels for the different size glow plugs (.010- 0.15)
The elements would be trimmed automatically by a small shear once they were wound, and then fall into a small low sided collection pan. Next, a girl would carefully place the element on the insulated center electrode for the plug, and spot weld them to it. Then, the other end of the element was spot welded to the inside center edge of the combustion chamber dome.

The reels of platinum/rhodium wire were kept in a locked safe, as it was very expensive, and closely controlled by the supervisor who secured them during breaks or periods of inactivity. However, there was always a pile on the floor around the pedestal base of the winder and spot welders  of tiny 1/32" long tails that came off during the trimming and spot welding processes, and coils that had bounced out of the trays occasionally. Although the girls periodically swept up the scrap platinum wire for re-cycling,  when we re-arranged the production floor and moved the winding/welding machines, there was a huge pile of platinum scrap underneath them that had gone unnoticed for years!  Because this was done  when the line was shut down and the normal supervisor was not there, it was a free-for-all and you should have seen us scampering to scoop up the scrap platinum as fast as we could before anybody noticed!