Oil City and nickel

For quite a while here at Oil City Pickups we have been trying to do our bit for the environment. We stopped using plastic boxes for packaging and now only use recyclable card and acid free tissue paper. We of course ditched lead solder and don't use beeswax in our potting bath. Our waste copper wire (mostly from vintage rewinds) is recycled, and we try to use UK produced products where possible to keep our carbon footprint as low as we can.

There is more we can do however, and the international shortage of nickel at the moment has prompted us to act.

Nickel is a vital raw material in electric vehicle production, the making of stainless steel, and many other vital electronic and structural uses. It is also what makes the 'Ni' bit in alnico magnets and is used in pickup covers and baseplates. Nickel is a finite resource and so I we feel we should be both responsible in it's use, and let you know which of our products are low in nickel.

The pickup above is the Oil City Assassin and the only nickel used in its production is in the alnico magnets. By cutting out the nickel baseplate and having no nickel cover you are only left with the 24% or so nickel in the alnico magnets. Added to this no plastic is used in the bobbin construction. We give this pickup a 'Low-Ni' rating

As of today we will start giving each of our pickups a green Low-Ni mark if they use nickel only in the magnets or magnet assemblies.