Custom Carbon & Graphite Machining

04 Oct

It's Not Easy to Buy Graphite These Days

Have you tried to buy a car recently? What about a new laptop, or a Solo Stove? Have you tried to buy graphite? Well, we have, and in some cases, have experienced the same frustrations purchasing our basic raw material that you may have experienced trying to buy any of these manufactured products. The market for raw materials, including graphite, is tight in 2021, much as it is for many manufactured products (hello, microchips). Chances are that it will continue to be tight heading into 2022. You may be curious how this tight raw materials market affects our graphite manufacturing...

27 Sep

Shipping Costs in Graphite Manufacturing

To ensure a reliable supply of material for our graphite manufacturing operation, we are always searching for qualified raw material vendors. In recent years, new overseas vendors have become competitive by developing excellent track records for material quality. To offer reliable graphite fabrication to our clients, we rely on vendors who we know will deliver excellent raw material. We have, therefore, cultivated relationships not only with domestic vendors, but also with some of these international vendors, especially ones based in China. By 2019, Semco achieved in our raw material purchases a healthy balance between domestic and import vendors. Working with...

15 Sep

Graphite Coring

When a client orders a machined graphite component from Semco, we do everything possible to give them the best deal we can. Providing value to our clients on graphite product dovetails perfectly with other values we hold, such as eliminating waste and promoting efficiency. Cutting corners, though, is something we do not do. If you order graphite product from Semco, it will be of the highest quality, machined to your rigorous specifications. Within this commitment to highest quality graphite components, there are still opportunities for savings for both the client and for Semco. These instances usually arise from smart engineering...

02 Sep

Flexibility in Graphite Solutions

When it comes to machining graphite components, 2021 has been a bumper year. Come to think of it, nearly every industry has experienced surges in demand this year. This situation has, of course, not been rosy all around. The current labor shortage has made things complicated for all types of organizations: schools need bus drivers, restaurants need cooks and servers, and machine shops like ours need machinists. So, like business in many industries, Semco has had to get creative to satisfy customer demand. The graphite solutions we’ve developed to meet the demands of both our customers and of the tight...

31 Aug

Semco And The Diamond Tooling Industry

Don’t believe the advertising slogan - diamonds are NOT forever, at least not if we’re talking about diamond tools. They wear out too, it just takes them a while. Diamond tools are special, though, with many specific applications that demand the singular qualities provided by what is popularly understood to be the hardest natural substance. At Semco, we play a part in using synthetic graphite to produce diamond tools. We know what you’re thinking: “Diamonds and graphite are siblings -- they both come from the same parent substance, carbon. Semco must just press the graphite until it becomes diamond graphite!”...