Kitten Factory

I know the dudes who run Kitten Factory, awesome dudes and they make pretty rad skis too, all pressed in their garage in SLC.
 
I guess ill go fuck myself, sorry guys.

Thats tight though, I haven't been inside the Kitten Factory since 13th street fight days haha
 
NS member KyleA is one of the guys who's running and started it. Big shout out to him for helping me get on my feet ski building!

Their vibe seems pretty awesome and from everything I've talked to about with Kyle, and seen from him, gives me the impression that their construction and design will be on point. Hope they do well in their initial season!
 
really awesome guys running it who know their shit and shred really hard as well...you'll get great skis as well as top notch customer service
 
They are engineers who know what they are doing when it comes to materials and construction... on the leading edge of carbon fiber use for lightweight skis that work... for sure check em out.
 
Kitten Factory is like Viice skis...

except they don't leave all their skis in a van overnight and then come on NS to bitch about how all their shit got jacked.
 
look like a dope company! do they have any riders on their team? if the skis werent as pricey i would definitely buy a pair
 


/images/flash_video_placeholder.png

awesome company with a great product that they've been self testing for years now.
 
Oh the 13th Street fight days...good times. But Kyle, Cal and crew knows whats good when comes to carbon fiber. Definitely give their skis a look because these guys know what good when it comes to a ski that can slay it all.
 
They are super dope! drop em an email if you have any questions and they will get back to you super quick!
 
Appreciate all of the kind words guys.

As eheath eluded to, Kitten Factory was a hobby throughout our college years run out of our Salt Lake City garage. As engineering students who moved to Utah for the sole purpose of skiing, ski building was something we enjoyed and what we spent the majority of our free time and all of our money doing. We have come a long way since the garage days and now have a fancy factory in downtown Salt Lake City. They are extremely embarrassing to us at this point, but you can find some threads on here from some ski builds from many years ago.

We started making mostly carbon skis because we thought there was a void in the market for decently priced carbon ski. To those mentioning our high price tag, at $949, we are about $300 less expensive than other pure carbon skis on the market right now. And all of our products are handmade in Salt Lake City, UT. We also thought that if done correctly, carbon could be far superior to fiberglass skis. Carbon seemed to get some negative initial reviews, because companies using it were just trying to make the lightest touring skis possible, using lightweight, inferior cores, cap construction, and producing very lightweight, but not very skiable products. Some of the other carbon skis were quite pricey, especially for being made over seas. Same with snowboards. Nobody was really using carbon, and what did exist, was either not actually carbon, or extremely expensive. We did not set out to make the lightest ski possible but rather, the best skis possible. All of our materials in our carbon skis are the same as our fiberglass skis, we just replace the fiberglass with carbon. They still have thick bases and edges, durable UHMW sidewalls and full length wood cores. We have been making and testing our skis for years now and definitely believe we have a standout product that you guys should enjoy.

Our production run is not huge this year, thus the limited sizing. We have been getting some inquiries about doing some smaller park skis and if we have some time at the end of November and beginning of December it's something we would like to do. And you can expect many more sizes in the coming seasons, as hopefully, we will continue to grow. We will also be doing a very limited run on a super fat carbon pow ski once the season gets going a bit.

If anyone is interested in purchasing some skis send me a PM and we can cut NSers a break a little better than our presale pricing.

Anybody in the SLC area, fell free to stop by the factory whenever. We are located on 525 S 300 W.

Sorry if this was spammy at all. We've been trying to get some ads on here for a while now, but it hasn't been working out for us.

-Kyle
 
Wow, I'm loving these designs! I'm really digging how gradual the dimensions change from one model to the next, really seems like you can dial in the perfect (mostly) one quiver ski. With that in mind, it's hard to complain about a (not even very) hefty price tag. Versatility definitely looks like one of their strong suits. Definitely gonna look into the Rayzrbladz or All Mountains if I can afford 'em this season.

I will make one suggestion/request, and that is for pictures or graphics of the rocker profile, to get an idea of how short they ski in comparison to the actual measured length. Also, are you guys planning on doing any demo days this winter?
 
We have definitely been slacking getting camber profiles on the website. We have been slowly making drawings using the actual thickness of the ski to give a more accurate representation of what they look like, but it's pretty annoying to do that in solidworks. Hopefully we will at least have some line drawing of the camber profiles up by this weekend.

Here is a drawing of the 187 cm Carbon Pow to give you an example though.

661174.jpeg

This is a pretty common profile along our line. More camber and effective edge in the narrower skis, less in the pow skis. We also continue the normal sidecut into the rocker section a bit to reduce hookieness and give you a bit more effective edge when trying to arc some turns on some more hard pack now. We're also fans of smooth, subtle curves and low profile tips.

If you want any specifics before we update the website, shoot me a pm or an email at kylea@kittenfactoryskis.com.

We will be doing as many demos as possible this season at a bunch of west as well as east coast resorts. We will keep our website updated with any events we will be putting on and will definitely post a heads up in the regional forums before we head anywhere.
 
The all mountain skis look money for a one ski quiver! Do you guys think they will ski ok in pow at 102 under foot?? Really wanna start hitting some pow jumps this year.
 
First i've ever heard of these guys/this brand. Looked around the site and definitely liked what I saw. Best of luck to these guys
 
Got my Kitten Factory's towards the end of last season but still managed to get them out in some Brighton pow. They rip! Super-responsive and easy to turn, but still stable going fast. Plus I got some killer custom graphics! The dudes that run the company shred hard and know how a ski should handle, and how to make them handle that way.
 
Of course it will, you moron.

You don't need an engineering degree to know the cost of making carbon fiber products will decrease over time.
 
If ya give the red names $$$you can haz an orange name

and not have your gear threads lanquish in the cesspool of gear gabberz

Or keep advertising w/ grownups with actual discretionary carbon fibered goodness incomes vrs.......

will stop by again this week for stickerz swag

and to put in my team rider resume.

 
You don't need to pay for an orange name, they are given t people in the industry. You only pay for donator status...
 
If you could read the thread you would see they have been in talks with NS about advertising. Also they didn't make this thread they are just responding cause they care about their company. It is useless people like you that make threads suck. Not answering real questions. Atleast get better at trolling.
 
Carbon is virtually better than glass in every way save the price of it. If you had a snap I would think poor construction or design would be more suspect rather than a ski snapping solely because it was carbon. The stuff is the future and will be the norm one day.
 
Carbon fiber is not so much a trend but rather a progression in the manufacturing of skis and snowboards. It's a better, lighter, and stiffer version of fiberglass, why not use it? As with most new technology or materials, the initial cost of carbon was very high but it is now reaching reasonable prices. Although, still nowhere near the cost of fiberglass.

The development of carbon skis by smaller companies such as ourselves has been prohibited by extremely high prices of carbon and insane minimum order quantities. In years past, if you weren't Boeing, you weren't getting carbon fiber. Skis and boards also require different carbon properties and weaves than any other carbon applications. In the aerospace and automotive industries, carbon parts are made to have high tensile strength and to be very rigid. Skis obviously need to flex more than a space shuttle and be torsionally rigid as well. As the demand for carbon is growing in all industries, smaller manufactures are popping up who are more willing to make special weaves of lower modulus (more flexible) carbon for companies like ours. Over the next several years you should see a good amount of companies beginning to introduce carbon skis of their own. Especially as the appeal of backcountry skiing continues to grow and more people are moving away from the resorts, the demand for lighter, better prodcuts will be there.
 
I'm just surprised it's taken this long for people to begin to use it (which kyle answered above). the fact that no big brands with $$$ have really pushed in this direction, but the smaller companies (g3, kitten factory) ARE the ones doing it seems a little off. so clearly there are some people who don't think it's a good move.
 
Since when has the ski industry been known to be original or creative and different?

If it wasn't for the guys who used the equipment that were sponsored by the companies, we'd still be on 220's with straight edges and single-tipped.
 
Truth. Along with that, supply and demand. Like Kyle said, skis require a special weave of carbon, often only produced by small composite companies. These companies might not be able to supply enough material to a large manufacturer like Atomic or Salomon. Large composite companies might not see it as a worthy investment either, So if it's not a realistic option, Atomic or Salomon or any large brand won't do it. Just because people aren't doing one thing doesn't automatically make it a bad idea.
 
Kitten Factory is definitely KyleA and Calrin little baby..they take the time to make sure everything is 100% perfect every time...every pair. The ski's are super fun as well..playful and light..Im sold on the carbon fiber. excited to see what the future holds for these guys
 
Kind of a meaningless statement. Sure, carbon has higher strength to weight and stiffness to weight ratios, but a good ski is damp. You can make up for the dampness by using a heavier core- maple or bamboo/glue laminate- to recover some of the dampness qualities you lose when you go to carbon. But there is a reason you still see race stock world cup skis built with mostly fiberglass, carbon simply is inferior to fiberglass when properly tuned for strength, weight, and liveliness.

Not to mention your statement is wrong- carbon WILL snap before fiberglass not because it isn't as strong but because it is so stiff- it can't handle the bending situations a less stiff triax can deal with.
 
It is more brittle because of its stiffness, I can't argue that. I can understand what your saying with skis being damp to. Some of that's totally subjective though. I'd rather an ultralight jib ski that I can future spin with that will chatter and rebound at speed, it would make a fun park (or urban) ski. Would this ski be good at ripping groomers or charging anything? Hell no.

Regardless of how well the norms work though I don't think people should give up on carbon or other technologies so quickly. We'll never get anywhere if we do that.

Maybe we just need to start weaving cloth that's a mix of both... Call it the Arnold Palmer or carbass...
 
I think the solution with Carbon skis will be that you can ski them 10-20cm shorter in certain conditions which will mean any decrease in dampness becomes irrelevent. They will be even lighter this way. I'm not giving up on carbon skis, no way, I think they probably are the future but you can't expect to put carbon or fiberglass on the same ski and think you are getting equivalent experiences with just some extra weight- it changes everything about the ski.
 
Oh, yeah, in no way is intermediatley interchangeable. Everything has it's pros and cons and when there is a change other things are effected and need to be changed as well to offset those effects. Luckily we have people willing to play with 'new' things to get it all figured out. That's what will bring it around to the mainstream one day.
 
Hopefully some of you were able to get on some skis at the demo day at Snowbird. We should be set up at the bird for the next few Saturdays, so if you're in LCC be sure to swing by our tent and try out some skis.
 
No way man. I agree with you 100% that carbon usage will be far more widespread in the future, but the rest of that was a little... Eh... Off?

Carbon in Goode skis was bad because they didn't cut it with anything. It was just all carbon super lightweight everything all the time. Most Carbon skis- DPS included use other materials to dampen the carbon. (See Pure3 for an example of how they dampen the carbon chatter in pure construction) See, hybrid skis use carbon to add snap and a little tertiary stiffness and fiberglass to dampen the feel of the ski and make it ski more solid.

Also Carbon is brittle as hell. Goode skis are generally viewed as pieces of shit because they can only do pure pow without feeling chattery, brittle and communicative to a fault since they ONLY used carbon and never bothered to dampen it. It made SUPER light skis that skied like shit and would break if you skied them in the bumps- which is why I'm not the least bit surprised to hear he broke them skiing moguls.

So yes and no- carbon is more expensive and has many desirable qualities, it isn't a magical "better" substance- and that's why Goode skis eat donkey dicks- they never bothered to make it right, they just made it sound cool. Properly used though, carbon is totally the future. I love hybrid construction and it's all about the SNAP. You can keep a softer flex but still have a kick ass rebound which makes a super lively ski. By itself though, carbon is super brittle otherwise Goode would be the talk of the town haha

 
I believe Whitedot skis has been working on a carbon/flax hybrid that uses a flax cloth to provide the dampness instead of a fiberglass. I mean anything can technically be used, it's just a question of what properties exactly you're looking for.

Shit man now I want to try like 10 different "everyday material" layups and see what happens haha
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top