Dart Diddies
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This page is a helpful guide for newcomers to the game
of darts. You can get a little background on darts and boards.I hope
you find it helpful in choosing the right equipment for you.
Sorry!!!! This page is presently under construction!!!!
Sorry!!!! This page is presently under construction!!!!
| Soft-Tip Dart
|
Steel-Tip Dart
|
| 4 Basic parts to
the Dart
|
Board Setups
|
Soft Tip Dart: 
The soft tip darts are called the revolution of the dart game. It is generally played on a plastic board or an electronic board. The soft tip darts are lighter in weight (usually 14-18 grams) and they come with a platic tip.
Soft tip darts are made of brass, nickel silver, wood and tungsten steel. The size of the barrel come in 2ba and 1/4 thread. (2ba being the smaller of the two)
(We recommend if your just starting to play the game to start with a lower line of darts. Such as brass or nickel silver.)
After you get comfortable with the game and you know what you want I would suggest moving to a tungsten dart.
Steel Tip Darts:
The traditional and Grandfather of darts. These are probably the most popular of the two. Steel tip darts have a metal tip and played on a paper wound or bristle board. Weights very from 20-50 grams. And like the soft tip darts they can be made of brass, nickel silver, wood and tungsten steel.
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4 Basic Parts of a Dart
| Flights
|
Shafts
|
| Barrels
|
Soft Tips
|
Flights
The flight is necessary to stabilize your dart in the air. Flights are available in a vast selection of colors, sizes and materials. There is no "correct" or "best" flight shape. It depends on your personal throw which flight to choose. Selecting the proper flight for your darts is a trial-error process.The most important rules for handling your flights are:
1) Always use the same flight shape on all your 3 darts.
2) Always spread your flights.
Shafts
(also called Stems)
.Nylon Shafts
These shafts are cheap, so when anything breaks replacement is not too expensive. A bad problem is that these shafts tend to break at the thread when dropped. It can be quite difficult to get the remaining thread out of the barrel. There is a special tool available for that , but a standard method is making a screwdriver hot and stick it in the remaining thread piece. Then you can screw out the remaining thread piece easily.
Aluminum Shafts
These shafts are more expensive than nylon, but also last longer. You won't face the problem with darts breaking at the thread. But aluminum darts tend to bend when dropped, and it is quite difficult to bend them into right shape later. Aluminum shafts are heavier than nylon shafts, which can lead to problems in flight tuning.
Titanium Shafts
are the latest development in shafts technology. They have all advantages of aluminum darts, but don't bend that easy. But they are also the most expensive shafts.
Barrels
Brass Darts
Brass is the lightest of the three metallic darts listed here. It is a soft alloy (copper & zinc) which makes it easy to for manufacturers to shape and work with.
Nickel-Silver Darts
Nickel-silver is yet another light dart that is an alloy consisting of nickel, copper and zinc. Like brass, it is easy for manufacturers to shape and work with.
Tungsten Darts
Tungsten, unlike brass and nickel-silver, is a very heavy and dense metal. It is usually mixed with nickel so you will see on a package something like 80-20 (80% tungsten/20% nickel). It is harder to work with but will last longer than the other two (especially the knurling). On average, a 20 gram tungsten dart will be ½ the size of a 20 gram brass dart which will allow for tighter groupings on the board. This is the reason most of the really good throwers use tungsten darts but if you're just starting out, you won't be throwing tight groupings anyway, regardless of the dart you're using.
Soft-tip:
Now, unlike steel-tip, the difference is in the width of the opening of the barrel, not the action of the point. Your two choices here are ¼" and 2ba.
¼":
This is definitely the wider of the two choices. Though I do not know this for a fact (do you), I suspect this was the first size that came out with soft-tip darts.
2ba:
Much narrower and much more common. It's been my experience that if you walk into a pub with soft-tip machines, you are more likely to find a box or bowl of 2ba replacement tips than you are of the ¼" variety.
Recommendation:
Unless you just love the set of darts you are using that has ¼" points and you can not find a set that uses 2ba points, I would just stick with the 2ba darts. They are much more common which makes finding someone with a spare point or two in the middle of a match easier should you run out. Note, if you like hammerhead steel-tip points, they will normally screw into most soft-tip 2ba darts.
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Board Set-ups
Bristle Boards:
Dartboards are to be hung where the center of the board is 5ft 8in (173 cm) high. I would strongly recommend that you hang it on a backboard, or any other type of backing, to help protect your walls. Four holes in the wall is better than hundreds of little holes. The line, or oche, should be 7ft 9.25in (2.37 meters) from the face of the board measured horizontally (if you want to measure it from the bullseye down to the floor, it is 9ft 7 3/8in).
The only thing you need to do to the dartboard after it is hung, is to rotate it after a period of time. This will only work if your dartboard has the removable metal ring with the numbers on it. If the numbers are painted on the board, you will not be able to rotate it. Rotating the board will make it last longer. There has been a rumor going around for years that you should spray water on your board. DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT spray any types of liquids on a bristle board. It will ruin your board. I have seen some boards that were sprayed, and it isn't a pretty picture. The surface of the board begins to 'bubble' and fall apart.
Electronic Boards:
Electronic boards differ slightly. the height is still the same (5ft 8in) but the length to the board is 8ft. (instead of 7ft 9.25in)
Scoring Portions of the Board
The outer ring closest to the black is double the number.The inner ring is triple the number. The outer portion of the bullseye is worth 25 and the inner is worth 50.
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Jacksonville Bullsh*t Dashing Darters
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