Custom Carbon and Graphite Machining Blog

21 May

Graphite Market Growth After COVID

The news is not a place to look for good news, at least not over the last month. Under the nightmarish headlines about what the virus is doing to people and communities are other frightening headlines about what it’s doing to the economy. In the current environment, with businesses idled and unemployment on a steep trajectory, it is hard to imagine growth in industrial output in anyone’s economic outlook for the short to mid-term. We at Semco, like all other businesses small and large, have watched with concern as events have unfolded. Would this downturn affect the market for graphite...

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...

21 Jan

The Challenges of Measuring Surface Finishes

Any surface, from a school desk to a basketball court, has a topography with peaks and valleys. On the surface of the earth, topography is readily apparent (except, maybe, in parts of Kansas). But even the smoothest metal surfaces deviate from a theoretically ideal plane. Recent standardization has resulted in the creation of a standard range (Ra) for surface deviation, measured in micrometers or micro inches. With graphite material, these deviations from a perfect plane are typically more pronounced due to the porous nature of graphite. Those small naturally occurring pores in the material have the effect of increasing the...

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. Graphite is a versatile and extraordinary material, and at Semco, we make it our business to be experts in everything about graphite and its many uses. The following is...