Custom Carbon and Graphite Machining Blog

27 Jun

Metal Casting Molds at Semco

What are Metal Casting Molds? Metal casting is a 7,000-year-old process used in both manufacturing and fine art. Graphite production is now a key part of this very old process. During metal casting, molten metal is transferred from crucibles into metal casting molds to create positive metal cast objects. After a metal is poured into a mold, both are then cooled and the metal object is removed and finished. Move forward a few thousand years and the place of graphite production in metal casting molds becomes more apparent, especially in the process called continuous casting. Continuous casting is a casting...

12 Apr

Graphite Components in Weapons

On February 24 of this year, the Russian military began its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Suddenly, war was in the news every day here and around the world. As the Ukrainian people continue to stun the world with their armed and brave resistance to the invasion, we thought this would be an interesting time to explore synthetic graphite’s use in military equipment and weapons. There are, of course, numerous examples where synthetic graphite is used in all the downstream industries that produce components for military equipment, such as in foundries (graphite electrodes) that produce the necessary steel, or in facilities...

01 Apr

Lorain, Ohio: Graphite and Much More

Imagine you’re driving down the coast of Lake Erie and you see a giant sign: “Welcome to Lorain, Ohio. Home of the Graphite Company Semco!” Ok, so there’s no sign like that. While we at Semco like to think of ourselves as integral to the town, there’s a lot more to Lorain, Ohio than machining graphite applications. We invite you to read ahead and learn about this small gem of a city on the Great Lakes. Lorain is located in northeastern Ohio on Lake Erie, at the mouth of the Black River, about 30 miles west of Cleveland. Like a...

15 Feb

Meet Graphite Cost Estimator, Chris Fultz

We are a graphite company with many state-of-the-art machines, but we also are a graphite company of great people. On this blog, we like to shine a spotlight on some of the people that make our graphite machining operation successful. One of those people is Chris Fultz. Chris started at Semco in 2017, and now has almost 5 years with the company. We brag a lot on our employees, and you may wonder how Semco finds enough employees expert in the precision graphite machining that we do. The truth is, sometimes they find us, and occasionally, there are happy accidents.....

29 Oct

ISO-9001-2015 Certification is Official

A few months ago, we wrote in this blog about a certification process Semco was going through that would help illustrate to current and future clients our dedication to excellence in manufacturing graphite applications and other carbon products. Here is how we described our thinking about ISO-9001 certification: “This certification (done through the International Organization for Standardization) will attest to the quality of our organization and highlight our commitment to the highest level of graphite manufacturing and to producing the highest quality carbon products. It will, significantly, allow us to compete for contracts where ISO certification is a requirement.” ISO...