Custom Carbon & Graphite Machining

23 Jun

Carbon Fiber Composite Materials in Vacuum Furnaces

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. We’ve never bought into that adage, especially since many of us have parents or grandparents who have taken up new hobbies like gardening or bird watching with vigor. As a business, Semco also rejects the logic of the adage. Yes, we have been around for several decades, and our core business remains machining graphite materials. We did not become industry leaders by shunning innovation, though, and as we have grown as a company specializing in producing graphite components, the materials industry has devised new graphite composite materials, as well as...

23 Apr

Graphite vs. Carbon--Distinct Materials

Here’s a quiz for you: which element occurs in the human body the most, next to oxygen, and is present in all known life forms? If you remember much about high school biology, you probably guessed carbon. And you’re right. Here’s another quiz: what industrial material conducts electricity well, tolerates temperatures up to 2800℃, and is shaped into thousands of useful tools and components on a shop floor in Lorain, Ohio? If you guessed carbon again, you’re close. Carbon and this material are sometimes referred to interchangeably. Try again. That’s right, graphite. But are graphite and carbon the same thing?...

14 Apr

Graphite Cement

It’s a Hollywood trope: the camera takes us inside a smelting factory or other metallurgical hothouse to establish an atmosphere of intense industrial heat and violence. In the center of these images is usually some sort of giant crucible bubbling over with what looks to be flaming magma. Think the orcs’ sword factory in the second Lord of the Rings movie. As huge as these factories appear, one imagines the even bigger factory that would be needed to produce that giant crucible! Sure, it’s the movies, but there is a real-world answer to that mystery of the giant crucible: graphite...

14 Jan

Industries that Use Graphite

For many people, graphite is something associated with pencil lead. People may remember it has something to do with diamonds, high temperature, and, if they think back to high school chemistry, crystalline molecular structure. Outside of industry, graphite is a material that just doesn’t get a lot of play in the media like steel or aluminum do. Followers of this blog, though, know that carbon products are crucial in many industries and the many uses of graphite. Graphite is a versatile and extraordinary material, and at Semco, we make it our business to be experts in everything about graphite and...