Abstract: In an apparatus for coating cylindrical graphite bodies, a pair of shafts are arranged in a closely spaced apart relationship with their respective axes lying close to the horizontal in respective parallel planes and slightly tilted in opposite directions in those planes, so that the shafts cross one another with none of their surfaces being parallel and form between them a guideway for a graphite body to be coated, the rotation of the shafts in the same sense causing the body to advance to a coating station arranged alongside the shafts and electrodes positioned above the guideway to form a coating-bonding electric arc with the body, which is supplied current through the shafts. The rotation of the shafts is reversible for advancing the graphite body back and forth past the coating station for the application of multilayered coatings.