Custom Carbon and Graphite Machining Blog

14 Oct

Graphite Price and Shortage Update

Over the last couple of years, reliably priced graphite materials have been harder to come by on the world market. As we detailed in an article about the US-China trade war last year, synthetic graphite manufacturing largely depends on coke and pitch produced in China. The ongoing trade war has further troubled the market that was already experiencing stressors from idle production facilities and green initiatives by the Chinese government that slowed the production of coke and pitch. Although we are now seeing some pricing and availability relief on the raw material front, the market for graphite material is still...

01 Oct

Company History

For just shy of 50 years now, Semco Carbon has provided customers with graphite material in both raw and machined forms. With this milestone ahead of us in a couple of years (Semco was founded in 1971), we thought it would be a good time to look back on Semco’s history and trace the company’s arc from provider of raw carbon materials and simple graphite components to one of the most respected names in the graphite machining field. The story of Semco begins with our founder Vince Thompson Jr. When Vince founded Semco is 1971, many of the technologies the...

25 Sep

Recycle to Recycle: Brush Plating

Recycling is important at Semco. Rather than dispose of old graphite material, we seek it out. Companies send their spent graphite components to us rather than to a landfill. A farmer in Iowa even called us up, asking us to retrieve large pieces of graphite from his cornfield. And it isn’t just other people’s graphite that we recycle. We also recycle over 1 million lbs. of graphite dusk and chunks from our own production facility every year. In today’s graphite market, which has been thrown into mayhem with the current trade war with China and the resulting regulations on production,...

18 Sep

New Addition to Our Quality Department - Sharon Velemirovich

Semco has recently experienced significant growth in our graphite manufacturing business. As more companies are looking to us for their graphite fabrication needs, it became apparent that we needed to add personnel. Our Quality Department, in particular, needed to grow to help ensure that our graphite machining operations turn out components that meet our client’s specifications exactly. We spent over six months interviewing quality specialists. At this point, Semco is happy to announce that we have hired the right candidate for the position of Quality Technician: Sharon Velemirovich. Given Sharon’s vast experience, her addition to the Quality Department will allow...

11 Sep

Graphite Recycling

Semco is a leading graphite company because we know our material as well as anyone out there. We value graphite and believe that it doesn’t belong in a landfill, ever. Not all materials are as readily recyclable as graphite. If you’ve ever considered putting a plastic bag in a recycling bin only to be reminded by a sign on the bin that plastic bags are prohibited, you know that many plastic items simply end up in landfills, or worse, in the ocean. Graphite is different. It’s a hardy and versatile material, and nearly any graphite element past its prime can...