Custom Carbon and Graphite Machining Blog

12 May

Measures to Ensure Air Quality and Social Distancing

A little secret that we know at Semco is that machining graphite is both an art and a science. Graphite machining is a nuanced, complex process that involves collaboration between the client, our engineers and shop floor employees, and our state-of-the-art machines. As much as we thought we had our graphite machining down to a science, the coronavirus has caused us to take stock of and recalibrate some basic aspects of how we run our shop. We produce graphite components for several critical industries, thus we began working under two imperatives during this pandemic: keep up our production and, most...

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...

10 Mar

Shipping Practices

Semco’s bread and butter is manufacturing carbon products. We purchase and store raw material (graphite), then we machine it into components that our clients need to run their machines and their businesses. But we don’t just make things--we also ship them. And when it comes to precision graphite components, or any item we’ve manufactured, we take the shipping of the components just as seriously as we take the making of them. After all, what good is a precision graphite part that we machined to exacting specifications if it gets damaged due to poor packaging on the way to a client’s...

03 Mar

Semco Capabilities

In this blog, we like to detail specifics about our work at Semco, sometimes describing complex jobs and explaining how we overcome problems that arise when working with graphite. We also elaborate on aspects of our operation, from shop floor initiatives to recycling programs, that make Semco one of the top graphite manufacturing companies in the midwest, and an authority on graphite industries worldwide. Occasionally, we like to remind people about the basics of what we do at Semco and what our core capabilities are. In this entry, we will review some of our core graphite machining services and go...