Since I got my dartboard in July and built my cabinet, other than being away from home, I’ve played almost every day. Sometimes just a few throws, sometimes hours but I try and get an hours worth of practice in a day which is usually broken up into a few sessions of 15-20 mins each.
Working from home has it’s obvious benefits but it can be a pretty lonely experience too so I do try to combat that by taking breaks. Sally and I will set reminders on Alexa for lunch and coffee breaks. I try and ride to one of our local branches once a week and now I throw a few darts through the day too.
Finding The Right Darts
I’ve been on a bit of a journey with the darts I use. Trying to find the right weight, shaft shape, shaft length and flight shape, I’ve found, is a pretty long process of trial and error. I originally bought some 29g darts with the board which felt ok at the time but in time just didn’t feel right. I tried some different shafts and flight shapes and that improved things a little but I felt I just needed some help with it.
I don’t have a dart shop local to me so I did a search and found Cue and Dart World in Codsall, Wolverhampton which had good reviews. It’s about a 45min drive from my house so I took Sally and Dan with me one Saturday and paid them a visit.
The lads in there were great. Really helpful. I was allowed to try any darts I wanted with different shaft lengths. I spent some time throwing them on their in-store board but I couldn’t make up my mind between a mid-range set of 24g darts or 26g set of Michael Smith’s (a lot of posh, expensive darts are endorsed by PDC Pro’s). In the end I decided to take both plus some spare shafts and flights. I left the shop £114 lighter LOL
Playing with them I found myself continually swapping. There didn’t seem to be any difference in my scoring, I just preferred the grip on the Michael Smith’s so after a couple of months I’ve now permanently settled on these.
But me being me, I’m never happy and want to try everything so last week I treated myself to a darts case to store my darts, spare flights and shafts in and I also bought some moulded flight & shafts. A revelation! These have a few benefits over a traditional flight + shaft setup
- No ‘Robin Hood’s’ – darts damaging the flights or shafts because they hit dart already in the board
- Deflections are more likely to hit the board
- The flights are always 90 degs for a more consistent trajectory
180’s
Quite soon after getting my board and playing regularly I fluked my first 180. It’s a great feeling and something that can’t be taken away from you. I wasn’t playing good enough or consistent enough to get another so I put it down as a one-off. Then when I fitted the moulded flight/shaft combo last week, things changed. My clustering was better, higher scores and I’ve had a couple more 180’s in the last 3 days. I don’t avidly record my averages but I do use a dart scoring app which works them out and my average has jumped approx. 10 points too.
All this talk of 180’s may give you the impression I’m now good. I’m definitely not, I’m just improving with practice and the right dart setup.
Fixing the dartboard
My dartboard setup still needs a bit of work. I don’t have any space in my house where I could ideally setup my board on a wall so I built a case in my utility with the board on a swing out door. This has it’s challenges.
Firstly the board kept rotating so I’ve fixed that by fitting some brackets that ‘push’ it away from the board to stop it moving and hold it in place better. They work like levelling feet on an appliance you screw/unscrew to level.
The next thing I need to do is fix the door. Currently it just sits open at 90 degs but can swing a little backwards and forwards when retrieving my darts. To solve this I’ve ordered a 90 deg steel bracket which will fit to the frame and stop the door opening too far. Then I’ll fit a magnet to the door to inhibit it closing.
Finally, I’ll probably give the whole case a lick of paint to tart it up
What’s Next?
I think the next step is when my board setup is complete I may dabble in a bit of competition. I’m not too bothered about pub/club teams right now but online is a thing. There you can play anyone, anwhere else in the world over the internet with a camera and an app. Score averages determine how good the player you play is to keep it fair so that maybe where I go next.
For now I just keep playing and enjoying it.
Adios