Are winding sticks nothing more than 2 identical pieces of wood?

[Phil Mueller]

As others have said, any two straight pieces of something will work...angle iron, straight edges, levels, etc. If you get the notion one day to make them, the wooden angled ones aren’t too difficult. Just a nice straight stable piece of wood, cut on a diagonal on the table saw. A quick couple pieces of contrasting wood. They don’t have to be pretty...just relatively straight. IIRC, these were made on a rainy weekend afternoon.

5D371E32-DCA4-4490-B785-76D094CDB731.jpg

[Tom M King]

I just use whatever I have laying around that's straight and parallel. I find it easiest to look at the gap between the two by sighting a line over the near one, and under the far one, since that eliminates any matter about what they're made from.

Somewhere in this video (edited to add: about 2:45), I pull two pieces out of the scrap pile. They're leftovers from Cypress shingle roof purlin replacement pieces, made from treated decking boards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SED7B65cppM

[Mike Harkin]

My winding sticks are two pieces of aluminum angle, with the ends on one piece painted black.