Custom Carbon and Graphite Machining Blog

27 Jul

What is Graphite?

We’ve written a lot in this blog about our primary material, graphite. We want to clarify that when we talk about graphite in most industrial applications, we are discussing synthetic graphite. Synthetic graphite is the crystalline form of carbon. It is a man-made material that is extremely resistant to high temperatures and acidic or basic solutions. Graphite can be engineered to obtain specific properties such as density, electrical resistance, hardness, porosity, compressive strength, flexural strength, coefficient of thermal expansion, and thermal conductivity. Below, we will detail the processes that go into making synthetic graphite and the different forms it can...

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...

16 Jun

Graphite Oxidation

As we have explained in this blog before, synthetic graphite (man-made graphite) is produced in hundreds of different graphite grades. Most of these graphite grades have been developed for specific applications, and each grade has its own set of properties associated with it. At Semco, we make it our business to be experts on synthetic graphite and the myrian properties of different graphite grades. We pass this expertise onto our clients so that they can choose the appropriate material for their application. With their extensive knowledge of these synthetic materials, our engineers can help clients solve very complicated issues, as...

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...