Custom Carbon and Graphite Machining Blog

27 Jun

Metal Casting Molds at Semco

What are Metal Casting Molds? Metal casting is a 7,000-year-old process used in both manufacturing and fine art. Graphite production is now a key part of this very old process. During metal casting, molten metal is transferred from crucibles into metal casting molds to create positive metal cast objects. After a metal is poured into a mold, both are then cooled and the metal object is removed and finished. Move forward a few thousand years and the place of graphite production in metal casting molds becomes more apparent, especially in the process called continuous casting. Continuous casting is a casting...

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...

05 Nov

The Importance of Maintenance in Graphite Machining

At Semco, carbon graphite is king. That material that makes up all our graphite components is the star of our graphite fabrication story. A less discussed, but critically important, subject in our story of graphite fabrication is graphite machining maintenance. The high quality of the graphite components we manufacture depends on the proper functioning of our machines. Semco is dedicated to keeping these machines running efficiently and producing quality graphite parts from carbon graphite. Hence, we have implemented scheduled maintenance for all our equipment done on site by our knowledgeable employees. Occasionally, when our state-of-the-art, complex machines have breakdowns that...