Custom Carbon & Graphite Machining

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...

15 Mar

Semco and Recycling Graphite Components

Semco is an environmentally conscientious graphite company. And this is a good industry to be environmentally conscientious in -- making graphite unavoidably involves coal and CO2 release into the atmosphere. While mining and making synthetic graphite has environmental costs, our industry is also crucial to the renewable energy and battery sectors of the economy, which are helping to switch our energy production to non-emitting technologies like solar. We are proud to be working on graphite components for the renewable energy sector, and we want to limit our industry’s emissions as well. To that end, this graphite company has prioritized a...

03 Mar

Graphite vs. Carbon Cheat Sheet

At Semco, we are graphite fabrication experts, and our clients look to us for advice on the appropriate graphite materials for their projects. When clients discuss graphite materials with us, we notice that one conflation often comes up. In casual usage, the terms “graphite” and “ carbon” are used interchangeably, which is understandable, considering that graphite is a form of carbon. However, the physical properties of the two materials that we refer to as “carbon” and “graphite” are substantially different. This is relevant in a graphite fabrication context since graphite and carbon represent distinct material choices, and each material is...

28 Feb

Graphite Manufacturing Issues with Supply

As a graphite company, Semco pays a lot of attention to trends in graphite manufacturing. Of great interest to any company in the graphite field is the expected ramp up of electric vehicle production both domestically and internationally. The fastest growing car company in the world exclusively makes electric cars (do we need to say who it is?), and most major auto manufacturers have plans to transform their petrol-burning fleets to electric vehicles. When they begin putting those plans into action (as many already have--see the new electric Ford F-150s, for example), the need for battery components will ramp up,...

15 Feb

Meet Graphite Cost Estimator, Chris Fultz

We are a graphite company with many state-of-the-art machines, but we also are a graphite company of great people. On this blog, we like to shine a spotlight on some of the people that make our graphite machining operation successful. One of those people is Chris Fultz. Chris started at Semco in 2017, and now has almost 5 years with the company. We brag a lot on our employees, and you may wonder how Semco finds enough employees expert in the precision graphite machining that we do. The truth is, sometimes they find us, and occasionally, there are happy accidents.....