Custom Carbon & Graphite Machining

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...

29 Mar

Turning Blocks of Graphite into Art

On rare but very fun occasions at Semco, we give our machinists (and our machines) a break from manufacturing graphite parts for industry and task them with turning blocks of graphite into art. The job of conceptualizing the pieces, of course, falls to artists -- our shop floor employees take these plans and machine graphite parts for these independent artists. On these occasions, artists provide us with shapes, profiles, and even solid models of their art work. Graphite is specified by these artists as the actual material for the finished artwork. While Semco prides itself on machining graphite parts used...

15 Mar

Semco and Recycling Graphite Components

Semco is an environmentally conscientious graphite company. And this is a good industry to be environmentally conscientious in -- making graphite unavoidably involves coal and CO2 release into the atmosphere. While mining and making synthetic graphite has environmental costs, our industry is also crucial to the renewable energy and battery sectors of the economy, which are helping to switch our energy production to non-emitting technologies like solar. We are proud to be working on graphite components for the renewable energy sector, and we want to limit our industry’s emissions as well. To that end, this graphite company has prioritized a...

03 Mar

Graphite vs. Carbon Cheat Sheet

At Semco, we are graphite fabrication experts, and our clients look to us for advice on the appropriate graphite materials for their projects. When clients discuss graphite materials with us, we notice that one conflation often comes up. In casual usage, the terms “graphite” and “ carbon” are used interchangeably, which is understandable, considering that graphite is a form of carbon. However, the physical properties of the two materials that we refer to as “carbon” and “graphite” are substantially different. This is relevant in a graphite fabrication context since graphite and carbon represent distinct material choices, and each material is...