Table of Content
Hello, darts player!
You definitely know the joy of the game, especially when you are winning, right? I am going to get you there, yes, where you win and win by ensuring you sharpen your dart in the right manner.
With a properly sharpened dart, every throw feels incredible, you cannot miss out on this, don’t!
A Quick Fix to Your Blunt Darts [Summary for the Busy Readers]
Blunt darts need sharpening. Here is how:
- Know how to tell when it is time to sharpen them. This can be done by looking at them or feeling the tip of your dart with your finger.
- Ensure they are not too sharp or too flat.
- Use a dart sharpener, sandpaper, sharpening stone, or any other suitable tool for sharpening darts.
- Ensure your darts have a rounded tip after you are through sharpening them. This helps curb the bouncing out of the board.
- Do it only when necessary depending on the frequency of use of your darts. This will save your darts from wearing too fast.
A Thorough Guide to Dart Sharpening
Think of the tools we use in our daily chores. The machete, the knife, the saw, the hair and nail clippers, you name them. We need to sharpen them after some time of use.
Apparently, they are a bother to use when blunt, and they remain so till you sharpen them.
Similarly, the sharpening of darts is very essential, we need them sharp to avoid bounce outs from the sisal fibers of the dartboard, a common occurrence when the dart tip of your dart is blunt.
Maintaining Your Darts
Every good game results in sweat. You have to feel the heat, only then will you know you are winning. Therefore, it is obvious that your darts will get stained in moisture and salt from sweating.
The oil on your hands will also cause corrosion to your dart barrels over time, in the long run, it will make them slippery, causing the loss of grip.
An action has to be taken to curb this:
Cleaning Your Darts
Cleaning your darts will help remove the slippery feeling by eliminating the grimy particles filling in the hollows.
It is advisable then that you clean them regularly. This can be done using any mild cleaner that can remove oil.
- One such good agent is alcohol-based moist wipes. This is especially helpful when the barrel of your dart has a painted coating.
- Alternatively, you can get a bowl big enough to completely immerse the darts you want to clean. Fill the bowl with warm water and use liquid detergent. Put the darts in and leave them for a couple of hours, perhaps two or three.
Using an old, soft toothbrush, scrub into the knurls and clean out the particles that are filling in the hollows and patterns. Be gentle, however, if you want to keep the barrel’s protective coating intact.
Rinse the barrels in clean water and leave them to dry completely. Back to the game after that, they are good as new.
The 4 Parts of a Dart
A dart has four parts that serve various functions:
Point or Tip
This is our point of concern today, we will discuss it at length in a few.
Barrel
This is the part you hold to make a throw. It is the gripping point.
These come in various sizes, styles, and materials. It could be made of plastic, brass, nickel-silver, or tungsten.
It brings about the weight variance in a dart. There is not one that can be dictated for use, this is just a matter of choices and preference.
Shaft
This affects the dart in flight. It could be long or short, also based on preference. They come in varieties where some are adjustable and some are spinning shafts all in a bid to make them suit choices.
Flight
This part is aimed at lessening the friction between the dart and air. There is a long list of choices of the style of the flight of your dart.
The flight of your dart has the function of minimizing its drag while it is in flight.
Some Important Info About Dart Tips
The tips of the darts come in 2 popular types. The point of your dart will either be a soft tip or a steel tip.
Some dart tips are removable, while others are permanently fused into the barrel.
Darts can also have either fixed points or moveable points.
A dart having a moveable point means that it is made in such a way that it retracts slightly into the barrels upon impact.
This retraction allows the dart to continue its forward motion after hitting a hard surface, e.g., the wire on the dartboard, sliding the tip further into the dartboard.
Sharpening Darts
Just like a chef will sharpen their knife after a while of usage, so do darts need sharpening after use for some time. The repeated force of hitting the dartboard will cause blunting of the tip of the darts.
The tip needs to be sharp in order to pierce the dartboard. Points while you play come from effectively hitting the targets on your dartboard.
One hindrance to earning points is having blunt darts that keep bouncing off your board.
So, we are passing this knowledge on how to sharpen a dart correctly.
To sharpen your darts, you need a dart sharpener. You also need to know how to sharpen.
What Happens If My Darts Are Blunt?
When a dart’s point becomes blunt, penetrating the bristle of the dartboard will become harder. You will experience more dart fallouts, so to curb this we use tools to make our darts sharp again.
Your dart could also be flat at the tip, and this has a similar effect as the blunted darts.
First, we shall look into how to tell whether you have a properly sharpened dart, or it is time to sharpen it.
- The most obvious is the eye test. I am sure you can tell between a blunt and a sharp pencil. In the same way, looking at the tip of your dart, you can see when you need to sharpen it.
- Run your finger back and forth around the tip of your dart. A good dart should have a rounded tip. If your tip is sharp at the point, that could mean you need to shape it to make it rounded.
On determining that you want to sharpen them, the next task comes in handy.
Types of Dart Sharpener
There are several options of dart sharpeners you could go for:
Sandpaper
Sharpening steel tip darts can be done using fine or medium-coarse sandpaper for metal.
Place the piece of sandpaper on a flat surface.
Hold the dart at a perpendicular stance to the paper and move it from side to side.
Rotate the dart slightly clockwise and anticlockwise until you achieve the desired diameter of your tip.
Next, hold the point in the sandpaper. Slightly twist is as you pull out the dart to produce nice spiral-shaped scuffs on the side of the point.
Feel the tip with your finger to ensure it is not too pointy.
Sharpening Stone
A flat, round, or rectangular sharpening stone can also be used to sharpen your dart.
Grind the tip of the dart on the sharpening stone, holding it perpendicular to the stone and rotating it slightly side to side in a back-and-forth movement.
Sharpen the conical profile around the dart tip.
Roughen up the end 3/4 inches of the sides.
Dart Sharpener
The easiest and commonest way to sharpen a dart is by using a dart sharpener. A dart sharpener is a necessary dart accessory that is super cheap.
It can be used anywhere, anytime as it is portable. You will comfortably have it at a bar or pub bearing in mind it is no luggage. However, you will not need to always have it on you, since darts are not sharpened every other minute.
For effective sharpening, start by grinding the radius of the tip first, then sharpen a slightly conical profile around the tip and finish with scuffing up the sides of the tip.
Usually, it is made from stone and has a rounded profile.
Other alternatives
If at any point, you need to urgently sharpen your dart, yet you do not have the above-mentioned tools, you can also go for the following; a concrete wall, a curbstone, a red brick, a fish-hook sharpener, a whetstone, an unglazed, rough portion of the underside of a ceramic mug or plate, a nail file or an emery board, a rock, or a regular file.
However, be careful lest you damage the dart tip in the name of sharpening it.
Things to Consider when Buying a Dart Sharpener
It is important to note that failure to use a dart sharpener in the correct manner can cause damage to your darts. Some of the most common things that you should consider when buying a dart sharpener are:
- The shape; go for Bowl-shaped or cylinder-shaped sharpener.
- Material; preferably, go for sharpeners made of stone.
- Size; Look for small and comfortable to hold sharpeners.
Sharpening Darts: Top 6 FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) About Darts Sharpening
Now let’s go through a few FAQs (frequently asked questions) before we can wrap up this article.
FAQ # 1: Where Do I Buy a Good Sharpener?
If your choice is to purchase a sharpener, you can always order one from Amazon. The link leads to a variety from which you can choose.
FAQ # 2: What Happens When Your Darts Are Too pointed?
If sharpened wrongly, your dart tips can be too sharp. Like blunted tips, too pointy tips are just as bad as dull or jagged tips.
Darts that are too pointy cause not only more bounce-outs but also ruin your board.
When your darts hit the spider- the numbered metal ring on the dartboard- your dart either uses its forward momentum to continue into the board or otherwise bounces right back at you. You don’t want the latter, right?
An overly pointed dart pierces the spider instead of rolling past it. When this happens, your number ring gets knicks and your dart falls straight to the floor. Over time, your spider gets more and more knicks and dents, which is damage to the dartboard.
FAQ # 3: How Often You Should Sharpen Your Darts?
How often you sharpen your darts highly depends on how often you play darts and how fast your darts wear out.
You should sharpen your darts when they get blunt as discussed above.
Sometimes, darts players will need to sharpen their darts once every couple of months while in others, even after 2 to 3 years of use, the darts will still be in a functioning state.
FAQ # 4: What are Dart Burrs and Their Effects?
If your dart hits the wall, floor, or another hard surface, the end of the tip can get a small bend known as a burr.
Burrs are destructive to dartboards. This is because, as you pull a burred dart out of the board, the burr acts like a little hook pulling out the fibers of the board with it.
If your dart falls to the floor, always check the tip as this is the most common cause. Dart tips with burrs can be said to be the number one cause of unnecessary wear on dartboards.
FAQ # 5: How Do I Prevent My Darts from Getting Burrs
To avoid having burrs on your darts, ensure you have some kind of cushioning material below the dartboard, such as a dart mat. It will prevent the dart tip from getting into contact with the floor.
This way, you will secure your dartboard from receiving unnecessary wear and tear.
FAQ # 6: Could There Be any Downsides to Sharpening Your Darts?
Be careful how you sharpen your darts and how much pressure you apply while at it.
Some darts sharpeners are very rough and may do more harm than good to the tips of your darts.
Use a tool that has finer and less aggressive grit. This helps in removing as little material from the dart’s point as possible.
Removing too much material from the point causes it to wear out a lot faster, and you will end up with a very short dart tip a lot sooner than necessary, which you will have to replace.
Over sharpening also affects the weight of your darts, yet it is very important.
Dart Safety
Dart tips are sharp and can cause injuries! Be safe, take caution and keep away from harm’s way!
Storage
After you’re done throwing, store your darts since you will have a game tomorrow. There are various ways in which you can store darts.
One among the most common is the nylon storage case. Make sure you have a way of storing yours safely.
But that’s not all.
Conclusion
To enjoy the game whilst earning points, it is of key importance that you know how to sharpen your darts.
While you are at it, follow the guidelines there above and your darts will be crisp and in their best shape. At Indoor Champ, we always got you!