JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #83 - August/September 2013 - 50

Canada: country guest of honor

Barrday focuses on high performance
materials and expansion

By
Mike Buck, President,
Barrday Composites Solutions

JEC Composites Magazine: Could you give us
a brief history of your company?

Mike Buck: Barrday was founded in
1953. The company remains privately-held
since being acquired from Allied Signal in
1993. After the acquisition, Barrday divested
other businesses and focused on engineered
textiles for the soft armour market. The
company has since expanded into a wide
range of advanced materials markets including hard armour, structural composites,
and fire-resistant materials. Barrday focuses
on high-performance and differentiated
material systems.
JCM: Lewcott was known for its phenolic
prepregs. Was it easy to promote the new
branding?

M. B. : While Lewcott was well known for

its coated phenolic prepregs, it also had a
full suite of other prepregs based on epoxy,
polyester, silicone, BMI, and vinyl ester resin
systems that were not so well known. With
Barrday’s focus on R&D, we have added
many new technologies and capabilities to
this base, including unidirectional prepregs
based on film coat and hot melt technologies. We have also expanded our capabilities
in thermoplastic unidirectional prepreg and

The North American company Barrday is known for its fire- and
ballistic-resistant prepregs. With its new thermoset and thermoplastic products, the company has also successfully developed activities in new markets such as commercial aerospace,
oil & gas, and industrial applications. Mike Buck, President of
Barrday Composites Solutions, kindly accepted to answer our
questions about Barrday and to give his point of view on growing
markets.
powder-coated fabrics. These technologies
were developed initially for armour/ballistic
applications and we have now expanded
them to include structural thermoplastic
composites. With the addition of these new
materials and technologies, we determined
that now was the right time to rebrand Lewcott into Barrday Composite Solutions. We
are in the early stages of this new branding
and expect to continue to build our name
and reputation as a high-quality supplier
of advanced composite materials for many
years to come.

antenna/radomes, carbon/carbon and
ablatives. While the majority of our sales are
in the military/defence area, our composites
business in aerospace has grown substantially with the addition of new products to our
portfolio.
We have introduced new super low heat
release prepregs for interior applications
which have been qualified at several new
suppliers for commercial aircraft. Our phenolic prepregs are self-adhesive to honeycomb and are toughened. We also offer a
variety of snap-curing versions that provide

JCM: What are your
main markets and
their respective shares
in your sales?

M. B. : Historically,

Barrday’s primary
market has been in
the military/defence
industry. We are a
premier supplier of
technical fabrics used
in soft body armour
to the US military
market and supply
prepreg materials for
a variety of composite
applications including vehicle armour,

Fig. 1: Phenolic prepregs for aircraft interiors

50 jec composites magazine / No83 August - September 2013

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #83 - August/September 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #83 - August/September 2013