Steve Porter asked:
There are lots of super gizmos in the world of dart supplies these days from the coolest looking dart cases, to flight protectors and the latest spinning shafts and if you are looking to add a touch of class to your darts how about titanium shafts? Obviously you are going to need some spare parts like flights and shafts, and if you are a soft tip darter some replacement tips. But there are a lot more goodies to choose from, as we’ll get into now.
One of the cool things to have if you are a steel tip darter is the battery operated tip sharpener.which shapes the dart tip to the correct angle in moments. Sure beats the traditional method of rubbing the tip on grinding paper.
The add a gram is an interesting idea. As the name suggests, you can add a gram of weight to your dart by screwing these into your dart and they come in packs of 6. (The shaft then screws into the brass weight) Then try the extra weight to see if your game gets any better. The add a grams are often part of a dart tuning kit that not only includes the add a grams but extra flights of varying shapes and shafts. You can then try out various combinations of weight, flights and shafts to improve your accuracy. Worth a try I suppose.
If you are a soft tip darter you are going to need replacement tips for when those tips get bent or broken. Halex have come out with notched soft tips to help stop the darts falling out of the board, never tried them myself, but they might be worth a go or just settle for the standard straight soft tip replacements.
One item every darter must have is the dart tool. The tool is handy for soft and steel tip darters. It not only helps you replace soft tips, but you can use it to straighten metal shafts and prize apart the metal tangs that hold your flight to make the flights fit better.
You must also have a set of flight protectors as not only do they protect the flight from being hit by a dart, they maintain the right shape of the flight when installed. These are a must have item for all darters.
Another way to protect your flights is to use the “spinner” shafts. The spinning shafts can spin so if they are hit by an incoming dart, they can spin the flight out of the way, so they protect the flight and do not hinder the dart just thrown.
Soft tip darts can have ***** in steel tips to change them into steel tipped darts so you can use them on bristle boards. You can even have a ***** in hammerhead type steel tip if the ***** thread on you barrel is deep enough. These retractable steel tips can retract slightly into the barrel so that if your tip hits a wire on the board the tip can retract slightly absorbing the impact whilst allowing the forward momentum of the dart to force the dart into the board. They greatly reduce the number of bounce outs you get with a standard tip.
We have covered only a small selection of the dart supplies available, there are lots more,. so when you are looking for a present for the darts player in your life you have lots of choice.
Click here to go to the ultimate Baseball Darts Store
Archive for the ‘Hobbies’ Category
The Dart Supplies you Need
Monday, June 29th, 2009Bottelsen Darts, Made in the Usa
Thursday, March 19th, 2009Steve Porter asked:
Bottelsen darts, the inventor of the hammerhead retractable dart system, claims it is the only US based manufacturer in the darts world. Now 25 years in the business, that hammerhead system rocketed the company to fame and they are still at the cutting edge even now, with an enhanced hammerhead technology for their latest version of the famous hammerhead darts and they are in the soft dart business as well with their skinnys darts, that come in soft tip and convertible kits. Still at the cutting edge of darts technology, they are company producing quality products, and their darts are always worth a look when getting a new set.
The hammerhead system that made Bottelsen so famous is, like all great inventions, a very simple idea. The tip of the dart is connected to a very small spring rather like a tiny pogo stick, so that the tip can be pushed back into the barrel by a small amount. This means that if the dart hits a wire of the spider on the dartboard, the tip absorbs the shock of impact by retracting into the barrel, whilst hopefully the forward motion of the dart enables the dart tip to slide down the edge of the wire and enter the dartboard. It works very well and it wasnt called the Hammer Head No Bounce dart for nothing, it greatly reduced the amount of bounce outs caused by the dart board wire and staples.
One of the great things about Bottelsen darts is the great names they give their darts, like Megathrust, Devastators and Nemesis, not to mention Ooh&Aah , now what marketing genius came up with that! Seriously though they do produce some excellent darts. The original hammerhead darts were 90 % tungsten but they have a 95 % tungsten dart as well with the Devastator dart that is super slim and has spinning shafts as well. With a variety of grips to choose from with smooth coarse and edge grip.
Talking of grip, Bottelsen have a range called Gorilla Grip with an extra coarse knurled grip for that extra secure grip when throwing your darts, not everyones idea of a good grip perhaps, but just an indication of how Bottelsen tries to cater for all tastes of darters.
The darts with the ridiculous name, Ooh Aah darts were developed from the Bottelsen GT series, but the barrels are much straighter and yes they also have the hammerhead tip and of course the Bottelsen spinning shafts too. Whilst they are famous for their steel tip darts, Bottelsen also do a big range of soft tip darts as well, like their Skinnys, which as you might expect are a thin barrelled dart that can also be bought as a convertible dart set. In fact any soft tip dart is convertible to steel tip by just getting a ***** in steel point. The Skinnys convertibles have genuine Hammerhead action steel tips. They also do a soft tip version of most of their steel tip range as well like their GT, Devastators, Gorilla grip range and of course those ridiculously named Ooh Aahs.
As you might expect from Bottelsen, they have crazily named darts range called Kick Ass, which are at the less expensive end of Bottelsen’s range with lots of different colored shafts and flights.
A novel idea from Bottelsen is their Precision range, which has a fluted barrel so you can place your fingers on the barrel the same way every time to aid in consistent throwing technique with a thumb and finger indents in the dart.
So whether you are a steel tip or soft tip darter, Bottelsen Darts has a set for you, with 25 years of consistent quality, you wont go far wrong with a set of Bottelsens.
Click here to go to the ultimate Baseball Darts Store
Dart Rules
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008Steve Porter asked:
There are a few Darts Organizations around that publish rules of darts, and the basic rules are common to them all. The ADO or American Darts Organization, the World Darts Federation, the BDO or British Darts Organization and the DRA Darts Regulation Authority (which the PDC follow).
Strangely, the darts themselves can be up to 12 inches long! Not that I’ve never seen any that length for sale, and the maximum weight is 50 grams. Usually, soft tip darts are in the range of 14 to 20 grams, and steel tip darts range from 18 to 26 grams, although there are heavier darts on sale.
The dreaded Bounce out rule:
The rule is that all bounce outs do not count towards your score and NO you cannot have another throw. Not only that, but if the dart falls out before the score has been taken it does not count either. I suggest you throw your darts harder if you keep suffering from this rule.
As for the throw line, that is set at 7 ft 9
Click here to go to the ultimate Baseball Darts Store
What are Steel Tip Darts?
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007Steve Porter asked:
The name steel tip darts has only recently been coined since the advent of the soft tip darts. Previous to the soft tip revolution, all darts were steel tipped and were simply called darts. But now there are two types of dart game, the traditional game played on Bristle dart boards with the old steel tip darts and the new electronic game that uses soft tip darts and electronic dart boards.
As the name suggests the tips of steel tip darts are steel with a sharpened point so they can stick into sisal or paper or even a wooden dart board. The steel tip has had some innovations over the years, like the Bottelsen No Bounce out darts that had the trademark Hammerhead system in the grip whereby the tip can retract slightly into the body of the dart absorbing the sharp impact if a dart hit the wire or staple on the dartboard allowing the forward momentum to push the dart past the obstacle and stick into the board.
Black widow darts had a similar system called a movable point that also had the added advantage of allowing the body of the dart to swivel around the tip achieving the same effect as spinning shafts i.e. if a dart hits the flight of a “widow” dart that is in the dart board, the barrel can rotate so moving the flight and that reduces the deflection of the dart coming into the board.
Another step forward for darts is the metal used to make the darts today. Tungsten has all but taken over as the material of choice for the body of the dart, with its superior density to traditional brass, the same weight of dart can be made much thinner, increasing the chances of getting three in a bed and that 180 score.
Apart from the tip, the body , shaft and flights are the same for both steel and soft tip. The weight of the darts is the other difference. With steel tip darts you can go all the way to 50 gm if you want, whereas soft tip darts have a 20 gm limit normally, to stop the dart damaging the electronics.
As for maintenance of your steel tips, be sure to keep the point sharp, either by rubbing the tip on some grinding paper or using the shaped carborundum stone you can get specifically to keep steel tips sharp. If you want to spend the money, there are motorised sharpeners that will sharpen your dart at just the right point angle.
Click here to go to the ultimate Baseball Darts Store
Soft Tip Darts for Electronic Dart Boards
Tuesday, September 26th, 2006Steve Porter asked:
The electronic dart board is definitely a hit, especially for home users as they are safer than the old style darts thanks to the soft tip darts used in the game. The soft tips are made from plastic so as not to damage the dartboard, and consequently wont damage your walls so much either. Also the maximum weight allowed is set at 20grams, which is one of the reasons the old style darters are against the new electronic game, as they prefer the heavier steel tip darts that can be used on the bristle boards. However being made of plastic has its disadvantages too, as the tips can bend or break when in use so you will need plenty of spares for them as well. Fortunately they are very cheap and easily replaced as they ***** into the barrel so can be unscrewed and replaced in seconds using a dart tool.
All the major manufacturers now produce soft tip darts, with the famous black widow darts set from Laserdarts and the devastators from Bottelsen, just to name a couple and there are a lot of convertible darts sets around which give you a set of ***** in steel tips as well as soft tips, like the skinnys from Bottelsen, so you can use the same darts for both the soft tip and the steel tip games, which is neat. The skinnys also have the famous hammerhead action steel tip inserts that reduce those infamous bounce outs on the wires of the bristle boards. Also the shafts and flights for the soft tip darts are just the same as for steel tip darts.
The black widow soft tips have the spider grip aluminium shafts which are supposed to grip the flights better; four steel wires are anchored in the aluminum base and are covered with heat shrunk rubber to form a firm hold on the flight, and like a lot of the more expensive darts, you can chose from a range of weights from 16 to 20 grams and of course they have their famous spider flights; so if you are in to arachnids, these are for you. They even have a set with a gold colored finish that look really cool called Gold Widow darts, (guess what color the black widow darts are?). Bottelsen have got some great soft tip darts as well, their devastators are very popular as well as the Nemesis set, which have the Bottelsen spinning shafts.
The Piranha is one of the most popular darts in the soft tip world and comes in any weight you want from 12 up to 20 grams and has the new feature from Piranha, the Razor Grip which is an aggressive grip that helps stop any slippage when you throw. They also come with Top Spin spinning shafts that can rotate so if hit by a dart whilst in the board it spins the flight out of the way so reducing the deflection of the dart coming in.
The darts that come with the dart board sets are err&.. how can I put it, not very good, so even the cheaper Soft tip Darts at $20-$30 or so would be a great improvement on those, so if you get one of the all in dartboard sets it is definitely worth investing in a decent set of darts as well.
Click here to go to the ultimate Baseball Darts Store
Darts: Sharpening Vs. Rounding
Wednesday, February 8th, 2006anonymous asked:
really be good at throwing darts. You could have fantastic scores. It really wouldn’t matter though if your darts keep bouncing off the dartboard, if they won’t stick. After all, if they won’t stick, what’s the use, right?
Sharpening or rounding darts for sport or for competition is a good skill to develop, especially if you’re a player. The dart points aren’t actually meant to be sharp, even though they may be when you first buy them. Who woulda’ thought? Sharp dart points ruin a dartboard by nicking the wires, permanently damaging them. Interestingly, they will cause the darts to bounce quite regularly off the dartboard. Not a good thing at all. And the sharp points won’t stay sharp very long. The points will often bend or roll over upon impact.
Many times a burr will form on a sharp pointed dart after sticking. This very small, very thin wire coming off the tip will cause dartboard fibers to be wrenched free when you’re pulling them off the board. Burrs are the enemy of dartboards. To check for a burr, hold the dart with the tip up. Run a fingernail up the side of the point. If there is a burr, your fingernail will catch on it. Should this happen, a dart sharpener, or sandpaper, can easily be used to remove the burr. Remember that it is a fingernail and not a finger tip to use. A burr is a hell of a splinter to have to remove.
So if you don’t want it sharp, then what? Straight up, the point of a dart should be rounded. Just like a ballpoint pen. Rounded tips do not damage a dartboard. They will slide past the wires instead of cutting them. There is no cleaving and, thus no burr will form. Interestingly, rounded-tip darts will stick to a dartboard much more than will sharp-tip darts. How about that? Don’t fight it. That’s just how it goes. And when you loosen the dart, dartboard fibers will not be pulled free. Even better.
Some dart players believe that a dart point should not be sharp or round. They truly think that darts need no maintenance whatever. Just play on! This is not good. Oh, no. An unmaintained dart tip will not stay round, it will become flat. Once your dart tip has become flattened, it’ll bounce right off the dartboard no matter where it lands. And because flat tips compress dartboard fibers upon impact, repeated use will ruin the dartboard, making it very difficult for darts to stick at all.
When the point of a dart begins to flatten, we only want to sharpen the tip enough to round it for use. There are hollow, cylindrical dart sharpening stones that may be used to sharpen the dart tip. These concave stones are fantastic sharpeners for dars. Small, flat rectangular sharpening stones for darts are also available. If all else is unavailable, use very coarse sandpaper. Simply wrap the sandpaper around the tip, pinch it firmly and rotate the tip until the dart becomes sharp.
Now that the tip is sharp, you’ll want to round it. Place the tip down on a sharpening stone or sand paper as though it were standing on end. Slowly spin the dart in place until the tip dulls just a little. Now tip the dart downward ever so slightly and spin it again just a handful of times. And now you’re done. If you don’t trust yourself to hold the dart still while spinning it, put the stone and dartor your hand holding the dartflush against a wall, or immobile solid structure, and then round the dart.
If your darts are dirty, clean them with water and a soft soap. Thoroughly dry them. Now they can be stored without worry of rust. But, if they do become rusty, sandpaper will easily do the trick. Lubricate the points with oil, wipe them as dry as possible and then store them. If cared for consistently, your darts, and not the flights, could last a lifetime.
Remember to keep your darts rounded. Definitely not sharp and surely not flat. It’ll only take a couple of minutes of your time to keep them in their best condition. It may improve your scoring and will surely lengthen the life of your dartboard. Good luck!
Click here to go to the ultimate Baseball Darts Store
Dart Games you Must Know
Monday, December 5th, 2005Steve Porter asked:
There are a fair few dart games to choose from apart from the standard 501 game. If you look at the specs of any decent electronic dart board where all these games are programmed in you will see some of them have up to 40 games and a hundred or more variations on these games. I have to confess I’d never heard of some of them till I went through the booklet that came with the board. Cricket is one of the most popular games with lots of different playing rules for different versions of the game. In fact I think most electronic boards have at least 6 different versions of this game. But for now lets examine some of the standard versions of the games of cricket and 501.
Cricket
Lets start with the game of Cricket; The cricket scoring board is marked as follows, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, B: The B on the card signifies the Bull. Before you can start scoring points, you must hit a number 3 times (or 1 treble or 1 double and a single); the number is then Open for you to score on, indicated by an O next to your name and thereafter every time you hit that number you score points toward your total with doubles and trebles scoring as normal as well. Your opponent however can stop you from scoring any more by also registering 3 hits on your number; the number is then marked with an X and takes no further part in the game. If you hit the number 20 5 times the number 20 is then open for you to score after 3 hits and you have scored 40 towards your total, indicated by an O by your name. When the other player also hits the 20 3 times the number 20 is closed, indicated by an X, and it is no longer available to score points with by either player, and game moves on to the other numbers. The object of this game is to score more points than your opponent, and hit every number and the bull 3 times. (The centre bull is counted as a double and the outer bull a single) It can get very tricky to decide if you go for points or close out your opponents scoring numbers.
501
The game of 501 is one of the simplest games to play and is the game played in all the big money professional tournaments. Starting with a total of 501, your score is taken away from this total until you get down to 0. The last dart however must be a double, so you can only check out with a score of 40 or less and of course the number must be even. The bust rule means that if you score more than you need or just one less than you need then you are “bust” and the score is voided for that turn. You start the next turn with the same score you had before. The dreaded scenario is to end up on double 1 and keep missing it. The double one finish is often called “Annie’s House” for reasons lost in the mists of time.
301
This is basically a shorter version of 501, the difference being, most local rules dictate that you must start your scoring with a double as well as finish on a double.
There are more dart games than this of course, but knowing these basic games means you can get a game of darts virtually anywhere as most darters in the world will know these games at least.
Click here to go to the ultimate Baseball Darts Store
The Bristle Dart Board is not Made From Boars Bristles
Tuesday, November 15th, 2005Steve Porter asked:
The Bristle Dart Board was the first replacement dartboard for the old wooden dart board that had been used for centuries. The Bristle style dart board is the ultimate dart board as far as I’m concerned, the look and feel of it and the satisfying thud when the dart hits the board seems just right, like this is the way darts was meant to be played.
The “bristles” are actually pieces of rope tied together to make a small bundle. Lots of bundles are then put on a wooden base and compressed together using a steel ring. The face of the board is then sanded down and the dyes added to give the segments their different colours and then the “spider” or steel segment dividers are added. The number ring is put on the outside and hey presto; you have a bristle dart board.
The first one was made by Nodor, which is a bit odd as they were a company that made modelling clay and their boast was that the clay had no odour, hence the name Nodor. They then had an idea to make a dart board out of modelling clay, which frankly did not do very well as it was a bit messy, but they sold a few. Remember at the time most dart boards were made from wood.
Then someone approached Nodor with the bright idea of making the dart board out of pieces of rope! This unlikely idea turned out to be genius and Nodor patented the first Bristle Dart Board in the early thirties. Having the patent meant they were the only manufacturer allowed to produce the board for 20 years and then other manufacturers came on the scene.
Other manufacturers now entered the arena especially Winmau. Now the race was on to produce better and better versions of the original Bristle dart board; staple free bulls eyes and thinner wire shaped in a diamond shape to reduce the dreaded bounce outs appeared. They also reduced the gauge of the wire used in making the spider, so much so that the present boards have 20% or more extra space for the darts to hit.
This means that these days all of the premium tournament boards are staple free and have ultra thin wire segment dividers. Winmau has its Blade III board and Nodor its Supawires board and now there are a whole host of other makes as well which all have increased scoring areas like the DMI Bandit that is totally staple free. All have staple free bulls eyes and ultra thin wire to increase the scoring area of the segments. The Bristle dart board is at the peak of its development, giving rise to increased scores compared to the past due to those ultra thin wires and increased scoring areas.
As for the future of the Bristle dart board, I think it is still bright, as nothing quite matches the look, sound and feel of a classic bristle board not withstanding the incredible developments of the electronic dart board.
Click here to go to the ultimate Baseball Darts Store
The Dart Board, Its History and Development
Monday, August 2nd, 2004Steve Porter asked:
The dart board has been around for many years, the first ones were simple barrel ends. They progressed to purpose made wooden dart boards usually made of elm. Unfortunately they were prone to splitting so they were soaked overnight in water which also had the benefit of closing up the dart holes as the wood swelled.A company called Nodor changed all that and were the first company to produce the Bristle dart board, patenting the design in the 1930’s. There was a myth that pig bristles were used in the manufacture, but pig bristle was never used, instead the bristles were small pieces of rope bundled together and compressed to form a smooth surface with a natural self healing property that lasts for a very long time.
Nodor got a patent for the design and so were the only manufacturer for 25 years or so for the life of the patent. After the patent expired other manufacturers entered the arena most notably Winmau . And you thought Nodor was a funny name. Apparently the name Winmau was made up from the first three letters of the two names of the wife of the company director “Winifred Maud” hence Winmau.
Winmau and Nodor fought for supremacy in the dart board market for many years until Nodor eventually took over the Winmau brand. During this time Winmau came up with their famous Blade board with ultra thin wire separators and Nodor came up with the first staple free bulls eye dart board.
The bristle boards were used in all the big tournaments that started in the 70’s and are still used today in the prestigious tournaments like the Las Vegas classic and the British Lakeside tournament.
Then came Electronics, the electronic dart board came on the scene and changed the game overnight. The odd thing about electronic boards is they are covered in hundreds of small holes for the special soft tip darts to enter. At first glance you think how can the dart get into those holes so exactly? The answer is the holes are at the bottom of a small dimple in the board, which guides the dart tip into the hole. And it works very well with nowhere near the amount of bounce outs you might expect. Also of course those holes have sensors, which tell the electronics where the dart has landed and records the score of the dart automatically. This was a great boon to darters as they no longer had to keep score and the boards could be networked to collect all the scores from the boards on a computer, great for tournaments.
The difference with the electronic dart board are that you have to use soft tip darts, and the tips are made of plastic so as not to damage the board. (Never use normal steel tip darts on an electronic board) Also the maximum weight of dart allowed on most electronic dart boards is 20 grams.
There is now a new technology, Bristletech dart boards, which are electronic dart boards that can take steel tip darts as well as the soft tip variety, so you have the best of both worlds. The Bristletech technology is set to dominate the dart board market in the future.
The archers of old would marvel at how their game has developed and I’m sure there is more to come, especially with the development of Bristle type boards combined with electronics. The electronic game is popular in both Europe and the US and who knows, the big tournaments like the Las Vegas classic may go that way too.
Click here to go to the ultimate Baseball Darts Store
The Electronic Dart Board, Even the Kids Can Play
Saturday, April 24th, 2004Steve Porter asked:
The electronic dart board just gets better and better. The original boards came out in the 1990s and caused a lot of controversy at the time that still goes on today. The purists **** them saying it isnt proper darts , but no one can deny their popularity. The big advantages are that the electronic game is safer and a lot more convenient than the traditional game. The darts have plastic tips so they are less dangerous and are much less likely to put holes in your wall and I think most of us appreciate the automatic scoring, especially for the Cricket game
There are now two types of electronic dart board around, the standard board with hundreds of holes in it and the new so called BristleTech board, which is similar to the standard bristle boards so you can use both steel tip darts and soft tips, and it still has the electronics to do all the scoring for you as well. This is truly the best of both worlds and is surely the way of the future.
The latest from Halex is the Armada Bristletech dartboard that has a laser that marks out the throw line for you! So you get to use whatever darts you like and the built in laser shows you where to throw from as well, fantastic! This is surely the ultimate board around for both schools of darters at the moment. Who knows, the electronic boards may be used in the big tournaments like the Las Vegas Classic before long.
There are standard wall mounted boards and the arcade style that doesnt need to be set up, as they are free standing and the board is already mounted for you at the correct height. (Great! no drilling) The latest electronic dart boards are relatively cheap, at a starting price of around $50 to $300 for the all singing, all dancing arcade types.
Also bear in mind the wall mounted version of the electronic dart board is necessarily bigger than the normal bristle boards because of the electronics, so when it comes to housing your new board, you will need a larger than normal dart board cabinet to accommodate it. Please ensure that if you get a dart board cabinet for your electronic board that it will fit the cabinet, there are cabinets made to fit the larger boards.
Click here to go to the ultimate Baseball Darts Store