Custom Carbon & Graphite Machining

27 Jun

Metal Casting Molds at Semco Carbon

What are Metal Casting Molds?Metal casting is a 7,000-year-old process used in both manufacturing and fine art. Graphite production is now a key part of this very old process. During metal casting, molten metal is transferred from crucibles into metal molds to create positive metal cast objects. After a metal is poured into a mold, both are then cooled and the metal object is removed and finished.Move forward a few thousand years and the place of graphite production in metal casting molds becomes more apparent, especially in the process called continuous casting. Continuous casting is a casting method used in...

23 Apr

Graphite vs. Carbon--Distinct Materials

Here’s a quiz for you: which element occurs in the human body the most, next to oxygen, and is present in all known life forms? If you remember much about high school biology, you probably guessed carbon. And you’re right. Here’s another quiz: what industrial material conducts electricity well, tolerates temperatures up to 2800℃, and is shaped into thousands of useful tools and components on a shop floor in Lorain, Ohio? If you guessed carbon again, you’re close. Carbon and this material are sometimes referred to interchangeably. Try again. That’s right, graphite. But are graphite and carbon the same thing?...

14 Apr

Graphite Cement

It’s a Hollywood trope: the camera takes us inside a smelting factory or other metallurgical hothouse to establish an atmosphere of intense industrial heat and violence. In the center of these images is usually some sort of giant crucible bubbling over with what looks to be flaming magma. Think the orcs’ sword factory in the second Lord of the Rings movie. As huge as these factories appear, one imagines the even bigger factory that would be needed to produce that giant crucible! Sure, it’s the movies, but there is a real-world answer to that mystery of the giant crucible: graphite...