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Where are skis actually made?

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
After listening to my Austrian co-workers saying they would never by a slovenian ski, it got me thinking!

We all know what country a brand comes from, I'm interested in where they are actually built, I know lot's use the same factories (which are rarely in the host nation) and that different products come from different areas but finding information on this seems to be a bit of a secret!

Does anyone know the specifics or could point me in the right direction on tinterweb?
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dulcamara, Atomic - most made in Altenmarkt, about 3 Km from my place, but some made elsewhere http://www.atomic.com/en-us/Stories/MadeinATM.aspx
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
dulcamara, Such snobbery is ridiculous, Elan of Slovenia are one of the largest and oldest ski manufacturers in the world, they make skis for loads of different brands including Kastle, Nordica and Head.

holidayloverxx, I've visited the Atomic factory in Altenmarkt, they only make the good Amersport group skis there (by hand admittedly), the rest get pumped out of factories in Romania IIRC (with their boots). We weren't allowed to take photos unfortunately, too many 'secrets' in the race and R&D departments...
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albinomountainbadger, Interesting, I read something that suggested most were made locally.
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holidayloverxx wrote:
albinomountainbadger, Interesting, I read something that suggested most were made locally.


It could well be 'most' are made there in relation to productivity or product lines, but our guide quite clearly said only the better skis were hand made in Austria and the lower range (cheaper) skis were mass-produced abroad.
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Production sites change fairly often. My current Nordica boots are labelled as made in Hungary, the previous pair of same model name labelled as made in Italy.
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All the Head Race-type stuff seems to be made in Vorarlberg, gonna go home and read the labels on all my kit tonight see if there are any suprises!
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After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
Some thread states (unreferenced) that some K2 and Völkl stuff is also shipped in from China, which for a German company seems strange..
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Thought it was Taiwan. K2 almost certainly made somewhere like that. When Völkl was bought by K2 (or the owners of K2), there were certainly rumours that production would move. I'd expect race skis to be make in Germany still. Bindings are all Marker (also owned by same group), and I'd believe it if they were all made in Taiwan too.

edit: wikipedia says China (and wikipedia is always right)


Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Thu 21-02-13 13:06; edited 1 time in total
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The stuff coming out of China will be the foam-filled crap for beginners, upper/intermediate and hand-made stuff will still be in Europe (or North America, perhaps depending on the brand?). Be on the look out for weasly wording such as "assembled" or "designed" in country XYZ rather than simply "made in".
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Almost all K2 (95-99%) stuff is made in China/Taiwan. They moved their production over there yonks ago and if anyone tells you that production levels are almost as good in Asia as they are in europe, laugh in their face as it is just not true. If that were true, why would the manufacturers need to visit the factory on an almost weekly basis (or in K2's case, base production pro's from the US/EU in the factory permanently)?

K2 saved a pile of cash getting their skis produced in Asia and spent more cash on advertising, hence their resurgence in the market over the last 10 years. They also dumped almost all their available stock on Sports Pursuit and it drove retailers crazy.......especially large chains that are already in trouble!

It's going to be interesting.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
My new Atomic boots had a 'made in Bulgaria' sticky label on the box which I suspect is Atomic's factory in Chepelare which also makes 'Orion' equipment.
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We noticed that the durability of Line skis went steadily downhill when K2 took-over them, but figured they just considered freestyle skis were cheap and didn't need to be hand made. Does put you off when so many come back.

Had a sales rep in the shop last season saying his company has stopped producing leather boots in China and brought production back into (Eastern) Europe. He claimed it was for quality assurance issues, but am sure the rising price of fuel and the like is also to play.

On the cross-production note, Atomic/Amer also seem to make Dynamic skis, and I've seen Wed'ze (Decathlon) skis with Head shipping labels on the packaging.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
albinomountainbadger, Anything with a wood core is made in Altenmarkt the foam stuff is spit between Bulgaria and Romania as are the boots.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Dynamic have been made by Atomic for years. The first parabolic skis were made by Elan, everybody laughed ok they would ski in a circle but what relevance did these funny little skis from Yugoslavia have? Then some racers took them on a slalom course and lost 2 seconds, the rest is history with some big ski companies taking years to catch up
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Mt skis are made in the Chamonix valley, it says so on the side of them. Dynastars.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Cynic, that Amer make Dynamic seems even odder when you consider that Dynastar was the fusion of Dynamic with Starflex...

Mistress Panda wrote:
Mt skis are made in the Chamonix valley, it says so on the side of them. Dynastars.


Sallanches pumps out nearly half a million pairs of skis each year though they also have sites in Voiron and Barcelona (loads of Rossignol skis have made in Spain on them).

However a lot of Dynastars were previously made in Taiwan by their Rossignol parent and just said "designed in Chamonix" or some such; they came back to France three or so years ago.

Some Salomon skis/boots also say they are merely designed in the French alps (same for a lot of TSL products such as snowshoes and sledges).
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
albinomountainbadger, Atomic made the race skis for Dynamic famous in the Face race in the 92 Olympics
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Mine are made in th "US of FKNA"
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There are some old threads on TGR about where skis come from.. they get a lot more nationalistic about such things (see also, US of FKNA above wink). In the EU there are big factories in Slovenia (Elan) and Tunisia (Movement) which make skis for loads of folk, including a whole load of smaller companies.

My Rossignol S3s were made in Spain, my Tecnica Cochise boots were made in Italy and my Dynafit Radicals were made in Germany. Dunno about the rest of my stuff though!
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albinomountainbadger, Cynic, Atomic also bought the name "Dynamic" more recently, then relaunched the VR27's etc.
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Mosha Marc, I got a test pair of them super cheap when they were developed, great plastic race ski at least, like a 9 meter turn radius!!!
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After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
This got me curious. Of my quiver, two pairs made in France, one in Romania. I very much doubt I could say there was much difference in build quality between them.
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So if there's factories churning out a whole stack of skis for other people, what's to stop us from getting a few generic designs together and getting "Snowheads Skis" manufactured?

They could be designed to meet the needs of every SH - an early intermediate forgiving ski, one ladies, one mens, an advanced intermediate ski, and a couple of wider powder skis. Seems like the max range would be about 10 designs, and presumably a factory chucking out so many different designs for so many different manufacturers would probably do it if we came up with an order for 50 pairs of each design.

If nothing else we could get a set of prototypes for testing on the bashes, see if we could get a lot of interest for any particular model.
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Mistress Panda, there are plenty of 'custom' ski makers and topsheet design is just that a printed sheet incorporated into the lamination build.
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Extrem used to let you send in your own designs for some skis. I know a French chap who redoes his own using surfboard construction techniques.

Or you could go the route of Boheme and let the client specify everything from the design to the wood used.
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Mistress Panda wrote:
So if there's factories churning out a whole stack of skis for other people, what's to stop us from getting a few generic designs together and getting "Snowheads Skis" manufactured?


There was an interesting project on TGR not so long ago that culminated in a new ski build (see here) but that involved a single design, a friendly ski designer and factory owner, and a bunch of people comitting to buy and stumping up deposits.

That was a design for a ski design which wasn't readily available at the time (and is still a bit unusual now). If you just wanted a generic ski design with a custom topsheet, that's a slightly different matter, and potentially a lot cheaper and more straightfoward than drawing up a bunch of new designs and having them all machined and pressed to spec for you!
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My Rossi's say someything like dreampt up in the Chamonix valley but made in a sweat shop somewhere else.
Does it make any difference? Nope.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Boredsurfing,

Very similar giblets on Dynastars - "Born in Chamonix Mont-Blanc Valley"
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
On my Armada's it says "made in Austria" and on Volkl 'made in Germany", but neither is this season's model so it might have changed now...
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never summer wrote:
On my Armada's it says "made in Austria" and on Volkl 'made in Germany", but neither is this season's model so it might have changed now...


I saw some Armada's in the Atomic factory in Austria; just sitting in a rack though, not in production. They also had a Volant presentation case in the design wing (which our German to French translator kept rendering literally as 'flying skis').

Ski brand ownership and construction is about as clear as the car industry.
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My Moments say US, Nordicas say 'Engineered in Italy, built in Austria,' Dynastars France, I assume my Atomics were from the Austrian factory, but don't know (and don't really care). I think Elan make skis for several companies, including Whitedot and Down (someone correct me if I'm wrong on that), and by reputation make very high quality skis.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
clarky999, Nope, Whitedot and Down aren't made in the Elan factory. We own our own tooling and manufacture in the former Burton factory in Poland.
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Out of interest, does anyone have any info on how the top sheets are produced. Is it the same process for snowboards ?
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AndAnotherThing.., do you mean printed? if so the graphics are applied to the foil via sublimation or sceen print.
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Dot., Just following up from what DOT said, the old Burton factory does produce for a few brands, from the people I have spoken to though each brand has their own specs and also their own designs.

I am looking forward to trying a brand soon that is making some very interesting skis which are produced in the Elan factory, in fact the brand in question make quite a big thing of the fact that their skis are made there and to their own very specific specifications.
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Dot., With the sublimation, is it the case of a inkjet 'type' print onto a substrate which is then (heat?) transfered to the board?
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AndAnotherThing.., inkjet onto the foil (top sheet material) then used in the lay up process. Depending in the type of foil after the press, lacquer is often applied depending on weather the foil is UV protected and to make the it more robust. Print is applied to the underside of the foil.

Most factories will use a process that is designed for their unique production line and process so our factory will likely be different to others.
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Pretty sure Scotts are made in the Fischer factory in Reid Austria, they have the same quality control stickers on them
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I think most of Blizzard and Nordica's (both owned by Tecnica these days) product is made in the Blizzard factory in Austria, though Nordica do/did have a factory in Italy.
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