Kingswood Skis are hand made in Lyttelton, New Zealand.

Lyttelton is a working port town connected to Christchurch through a 1.4km tunnel through the Port Hills. Kingswood Skis was born here. The R&D and first years of production were carried out in an old laboratory space in the basement of a 1960s office tower.

We moved into our new factory in March 2007. A historic Lyttelton building, the unusual, rough-cast concrete walls were constructed in the 1880s using ships' ballast as the aggregate. A former ship chandlery, the building was most recently the Lyttelton Rugby Club rooms.

The large factory means each part of the process can be separated for maximum efficiency and minimum dust transfer. Being mostly underground, the factory stays a constant temperature year-round, which means we have total consistency in our production (epoxy is very temperature sensitive).

Each pair of Kingswood Skis is lovingly finished with a basegrind and hot wax on our in-house machinery.

The factory has occasionally been put to use for other purposes. A robot party left us the legacy of a giant cardboard robot and two five-DJ, all-night Kingswood Factory Rave parties have left a legacy of glow-sticks and talcum powder that may never be erased.

Check out the construction page to view a video of the skis being made and the materials page for more info about what goes into our skis.