Custom Carbon & Graphite Machining

12 Feb

Optimizing Machine Speeds for Carbon and Graphite Components

If you're accustomed to machining metals, your first instinct with carbon and graphite might be to run your machine at similar speeds. That's a mistake that leads to chipped edges, poor surface finish, and, as you’ll find out to your frustration, short tool life. Graphite is not metal, as we elaborate on below. Machining these different materials requires quite different approaches to dust control, to managing excessive heat, and to achieving desired surface finishes. At Semco Carbon, we've learned that a different approach to speed optimization is especially important when it comes to machining graphite. We explore why this is...

23 Dec

Precision Graphite Machining: Best Practices and Common Challenges

Graphite Machining Takes Knowledge and ExperienceWhen it comes to precision machining of graphite, the difference between a quality component and scrap often comes down to understanding the material's unique characteristics. Graphite isn’t like metal or wood. It provides a great many benefits due to its superior thermal conductivity at high temperatures and heat spreading properties making it ideal for electronic components on circuit boards like heat sinks, while it's cost effectiveness also make it a great option for semiconductor manufacturing or any other processes that require high temperatures and the highest standards. With the current and forecasted boom in renewable...

25 Nov

Innovations in Graphite Machining Techniques: What's Coming in 2026?

Over the past two decades, the tech world has conditioned us to expect lightning-fast high speed innovation. Now, every few months brings new AI capabilities, faster processors, and software that can do things we couldn't imagine a year ago. It's easy to assume that every industry moves at this pace. But that's not how innovation works in manufacturing, and it's certainly not how it works in graphite machining. Not that graphite machining doesn’t involve cutting-edge technology. It does. We, of course, incorporate automated systems and CAD/CAM machining into our workflows. But at Semco, we keep before us a picture of...

19 Nov

How Custom Graphite Parts Improve Efficiency in the Steel Industry

Steel production has never had a reputation for being clean or efficient. For over a century, massive blast furnaces consumed enormous amounts of coal and iron ore while belching CO2 into the atmosphere. But the steel industry has been changing, slowly but surely. Electric arc furnaces now dominate steel production in the United States, and the shift toward scrap recycling has reduced both energy consumption and emissions. At Semco, we've watched these changes closely because custom graphite parts play a significant role in making modern steelmaking more efficient. The electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity of graphite, along with its thermal...

11 Nov

Carbon Graphite: Sustainability and Green Manufacturing Practices

At Semco, we pay close attention to developments in synthetic graphite production, not just because we machine graphite components daily, but because our customers increasingly ask about sustainability. The truth is, graphite manufacturing has never been particularly "green." Synthetic graphite production consumes enormous amounts of energy, and the recycling of graphite has historically lagged behind other materials. As we’ve written about in a previous blog, we were called in to extract large graphite electrodes that had been disposed of in an Iowa cornfield. Yet we're seeing real changes in how graphite gets made and how it's being recovered and reused....