Custom Carbon and Graphite Machining Blog

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...

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...

17 Feb

Semco Welcomes Nadia Lopez, Our New Office Manager

Semco Carbon is a graphite company with tons of graphite stored in our warehouse and expensive state-of-the-art CNC machines that perform graphite production operations on our shop floor, but our most valuable assets are our amazing employees. We are always excited to bring a new person on board, and now we have the honor of welcoming our most recent addition to the team, the new Office Manager Nadia Lopez. “Office Manager” is a catch-all term that can include various duties, depending on the company. In her short time here, Nadia has already started working with our Estimation, Production, and Shipping/Receiving...

10 Feb

Problem Solving at Semco - Precision Graphite Machining for Graphite Applications

Semco runs a complex manufacturing facility in Lorain, Ohio. We employ highly skilled workers who run state-of-the-art equipment to perform precision graphite machining. So many variables are at play when we make custom parts for our clients’ graphite applications, and our expertise is in controlling all of those variables (eg, graphite grade, tolerancing, design specs, etc) to produce high quality graphite components that our customers depend on. With so many moving parts in our operation, it is inevitable that problems will arise. While problems in the production line can back up orders and are generally seen by all employees as...