Experts in fire protection of composites

Finnester Coatings is a Finnish company specialising in fire protection of composites. Our expertise is based on know-how accumulated over decades of working in the composites industry. Our ground-breaking ideas about chemistry have resulted in revolutionary coating technologies, which allow composite manufacturers to meet stringent fire safety regulations without needing to change their original composite material at all.

Possessing our own Fire Lab allows us to run a vast number of tests with different composite substrates and coating solutions. This adds to our expertise in the field alongside the extensive development work with fire protective coatings.

Our history

Finnester Coatings started as a family business over two decades ago by brothers Ari and Mika Hokkanen. Ari followed his father into the world of polymer chemistry and graduated as M.Sc. (Eng.) in chemistry. A long career in the composites industry revealed several challenges facing the industry, and Ari believed he could solve many of these with coating products.

Finnester Coatings was founded for this purpose and the company has a long history of close development cooperation with Finnish composite manufacturers. To meet industry needs, the company developed cutting-edge coating solutions which offered a smoother finish and a faster curing time than competition, saving time and money for the composite manufacturers.

Ground-breaking coating innovation gives focus on fire safety

When our R&D team started exploring opportunities in ceramifying technology, the result was the game-changing HYBRID technology where the synergy between inorganic and organic chemistries really thrives. The technology opened new possibilities to challenging applications since this combination provides a fantastic number of benefits, such as UV and weather resistance, as well as resistance to heat, corrosion, chemicals and dirt, not to forget excellent adhesion and curing at room temperature.

Most significantly, the HYBRID technology exhibits unique fire protection features. We realised immediately the opportunity for protecting composites from fire and the range of new applications this innovation would enable for the use of composite material.

Today Finnester Coatings has implemented its strategy as an expert in fire protection of composites and our know-how in the field is unbeatable. We have created the Finnester RED fire protective coating system for composites which is certified for the main fire safety standards in Europe. We will continue implementing our strategy enabling new, environmentally friendlier applications for composite structures.