After three years of thorough R&D, Kingswood skis hit the market in June. Conceived, designed and manufactured in New Zealand they are a product shaped by the harsh Kiwi snow environment. Burly enough to handle the variable snow conditions, tussock and razor sharp shale they don't show in the tourist brochures.







Simple, solid and precision crafted in New Zealand, Kingswood Skis are made by hand, one at a time - with the burliest materials, using the strongest construction methods.

All Kingswood skis have sidewall construction and (alone in the ski industry) offer a two year warrantee. The cores are made of vertically laminated bamboo and the sidewalls, edges, bases, epoxy and fibreglass used in construction are the best available. Corners have not been cut.







The current Kingswood range includes five simplistically named models in two sizes: the skinny (86mm underfoot) and fat (110mm underfoot) are available in 185cm or 170cm lengths. The mid-fat (104mm underfoot) is available as a 185cm. Because they're made by hand and to the rigorous standards of a perfectionist, Kingswood can only make about 200 pairs of skis each year.






"Our philosphy is about simplifying snow skis," says ski maker Alex Herbert. "We believe construction was better 20 years ago than it is today. We're a bit unconventional because we don't have retail outlets and we don't have a team of pre-pubescent gangsters. We're just trying to make solid skis for off-piste skiing."

While product testing the fat ski in Europe last year, Alex was swamped by an eight-day storm. "I thought the 110mm waist wasn't wide enough," he said.






His answer? The "mega-fat". At 174mm at the tip, 146 underfoot and 159 at the tail, it's fatter than fat. An extra-wide bamboo core has been used instead of the traditional sidewalls. This makes the ski incredibly light for its size.

Check out the Kingswood website for more info.







The hand made difference:
* Edges are painstakingly bent and pre-glued to the base material.
* Sidewalls are pre-glued to the base material for a stronger bond.
* Glue is hand-painted into the teeth of the edge for a thorough coating.
* Fibreglass is hand-wet with glue (no air bubbles)
* Skis are hand-finished with a Wintersteiger stonegrind finish and a hot wax.

Kingswood admits that not all these benefits were by design: “Our journey into ski making has been unique – and many of the innovations have been the result of limited resources. Our first press was made up of rolled steel sheets, an I-beam and some car jacks. That press was quickly replaced by a better, more consistent hydraulic press. But many of the other processes we developed have proven to be better than traditional manufacturing techniques.”

The stats speak for themselves.
To date, Kingswood has sold nearly 200 pairs of skis. Not one of them has been returned as a warranty.


Courtesy of Kingswood skis.