Materialman

It would probably be better if you described the contract situation/background you are thinking about. FAR 22.402, contracts for construction work, includes the following: 

  (2) The requirements of this subpart do not apply to-

                (i) The manufacturing of components or materials off the site of the work or their subsequent delivery to the site by the commercial supplier or materialman;

A materialman is one of those who might be able to file a mechanic's lien for non-payment in a construction contract, and may be protected by the prime contractor's Miller Act payment bond.  Or, maybe not.  Sometimes, it is hard to tell whether a party is a subcontractor or a materialman.

lotus said:

Does the concept of materialman exist in federal contract law?

Yes.  For Miller Act payment bonds, it may make a difference whether a claiming party is a supplier to the prime contractor, to a subcontractor, or to a materialman. 

But, these claims are usually between the claimant and the prime contractor's surety, so maybe it isn't so much a matter of federal contract law?

lotus said:

Does the concept of materialman exist in federal contract law?

Yes.

See FAR 22.402(a)(2)(i) with respect to the applicability of labor standards for construction contracts to a materialman. That's the only express mention of the term materialman in the FAR itself.

Also, there have been a few law review articles in the Public Contracts Law Journal about the status of materialmen as subcontractors.

Materialmen have been mentioned in at least 80 board of contract appeals decisions.

Sometimes materialmen are treated as subcontractors and sometimes they are distinguished. See: "What Is A Subcontract? Who Is A Subcontractor?" in The Nash & Cibinic Report (April 2012):

Quote

The construction industry has long made a distinction between “subcontractors” and “suppliers”, which are also known as “materialmen.” See Clifford F. MacEvoy Co v. U.S., 322 U.S. 102 (1944) (Miller Act interpreted to distinguish subcontractors and materialmen) and RSMeans Illustrated Construction Dictionary (4th ed. 2009). The distinction is noted in the Department of Labor's interpretations of statutory terms relating to occupational safety and health in the construction industry. See 29 C.F.R. § 1926.13(c):

[A] supplier of materials which will become an integral part of the construction is a “subcontractor” if the supplier fabricates or assembles the goods or materials in question specifically for the construction project and the work involved may be said to be construction activity. If the goods or materials in question are ordinarily sold to other customers from regular inventory, the supplier is not a “subcontractor.”

The same distinction is indicated in other titles of Code of Federal Regulations. See, e.g., 7 C.F.R. § 1924.13, which distinguishes between “subcontractors” and “material suppliers.”