Custom Carbon and Graphite Machining Blog

21 May

Graphite Market Growth After COVID

The news is not a place to look for good news, at least not over the last month. Under the nightmarish headlines about what the virus is doing to people and communities are other frightening headlines about what it’s doing to the economy. In the current environment, with businesses idled and unemployment on a steep trajectory, it is hard to imagine growth in industrial output in anyone’s economic outlook for the short to mid-term. We at Semco, like all other businesses small and large, have watched with concern as events have unfolded. Would this downturn affect the market for graphite...

01 May

Semco is an Essential Business

Semco would like to share an important status update with our clients: through the current crisis, our graphite production operation will remain open. With the COVID pandemic pushing federal and local governments to institute various closures and social distancing measures, we wanted to reassure our customers that Semco will continue producing graphite products that they rely on. With close to 50 years of graphite production experience, Semco machines many parts and components that are used in essential products and processes across various industries. To get our clients the graphite components they need to run their important businesses, our company has...

02 Apr

COVID-19's Effects of Supply Chain

As you have certainly heard, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the world economy, while thousands have died or lost loved ones to the virus. The effects of COVID-19 are being powerfully felt now in America. Most of us, for instance, have likely experienced the direct effects of supplier disruptions at our local grocery stores. The effects on trade continue to ripple and magnify as the virus spreads to all parts of the world. Semco is positioned in an industry that has already experienced serious supply chain disruptions well before COVID-19 overtook parts of Wuhan Province in...

17 Mar

Graphite Impregnation

Graphite is a wonder material, produced in nature and produced by man, and in high demand in many industries. Most graphite components, from graphite plates to crucibles, can be machined from pure graphite. However, graphite is a naturally porous material. It absorbs water, for instance, although very slowly. This quality of porosity is not ideal for some applications, and the graphite material must be mixed, or “impregnated,” with other materials that alter the behavior of the material in special circumstances, such as in the presence of chemicals or extreme heat. Below are some of the more common impregnation types that...

10 Mar

Shipping Practices

Semco’s bread and butter is manufacturing carbon products. We purchase and store raw material (graphite), then we machine it into components that our clients need to run their machines and their businesses. But we don’t just make things--we also ship them. And when it comes to precision graphite components, or any item we’ve manufactured, we take the shipping of the components just as seriously as we take the making of them. After all, what good is a precision graphite part that we machined to exacting specifications if it gets damaged due to poor packaging on the way to a client’s...