What's Your Point?

The point puller I ordered from Mueller just arrived last week and I have had some opportunity to use it although only one one set of darts. I am waiting for some conversion plugs to arrive from Jeff Pickup, which is the real reason I got this puller. The puller was half price which I was quite happy about but I suspect the doubled the price before halving it because it was still pretty expensive!

The puller came with two different size allen wrenches. One is for tightening the small block doen on the point to be pulled from (or pushed into) the dart. That one you use constantly. The other allen wrench is much smaller and is for replacing the part that screws into the shaft hole of the dart. The replacement is if you are putting new points on 1/4" threaded darts, of which I have only a few. The whole mechanism came in a cheap plastic dart case.

My first project was to put a set of one inch hypo points on my fixed point megathrusts. When I bought the darts they came with these very long English style points which I wanted to replace from the get-go but never had the means to do it. As you can see from the photo below that point puller was equal to the task but there were two problems. The first is that the point was not straight in the dart. I think this is because the hypo points taper immediately with no initial cylindrical part of the shank. This was easy enough to correct by hand. The second problem was that after a haalf a dozen rounds or so I got back to the oche and discovered one of the darts didn't have a point!! The point stayed in the board. Upon investigation I discovered that the hole had become looser and the points could go in and out by hand. Not good.


So I then decided to see how easy they would be to remove by hand and too my horror I was able to pull all the points out by hand with little difficulty. As well as push them all the way back in by hand. So what I am thinking is that perhaps this particular set of darts I am working with had loose holes and I couldn't really expect the points to stay in with friction and a tight fit alone. So what I did was to coat the points at then end where they enter the dart with lock tight and stick them back in the dart. This seems to have worked as I have thrown a few games with these darts and the points have not come out. It remains to be seen if this device will be useful for anything other than pulling points out of darts. Could be that the points have to be glued in and that forceful pushing is not required.

What you see below is everything that came with the puller except the case which was just a standard dart case without the little crappy plastic molds in it. All in all I am glad I bought it, but I have not used it much yet. Once I have all the pieces I am waiting for I will be sticking carding needles that I got from Dartnut in the the conversion plugd from Jeff Pickup, and then I will have some nice GT mods to blog on.

Wooden Ton-40

I hit this Ton-40 while playing around with the darts that came with the Club house Golf set.



I will probably stash the cabinet away until I can repair some minor UPS damage, and the board will only get minimal use until I can find a second one to keep in good condition (it is the collector in me) but three of the darts will stay of of the box so I can toss them around from time to time. It is amazing how quickly you can adjust to a new dart. These woodies are thick and light. They are easily the thickest dart I have yet they weigh in at a mere 13 grams. They are quite fun to throw though. Perhaps I'll nail a ton-80 with them soon? I was consistent enough with them that I am half considering using them in league. The only down fall to that is that if I really bomb my team will think I was not taking the match seriously, and if I destroy everyone they will think I was just being a pompous doof.

It would be fun to bring them though.

11th Lifetime Ton-80

Here is the second Ton-80 I have hit this year and I am quite excited about it.

I am excited for a couple reasons. First, these are the lightest darts I have ever Maxed with (15 grams) and second because they seem to be flying consistently well for me. This Ton-80 came on the back of a Ton-40, an 85 and a Ton-25. Lots of triple 20's in there to make me think these are viable darts.

The darts:

Points: Fixed
Barrels: 15 gram Featherlights by Red Dragon
Stems: Short Nylon Dynastar
Flights: Black Pear Dynastar

Hole in One

Now that I actually have my Par-Darts board in my possession I have taken to putting it up from time to time and tossing a round of golf. Or rather, since it is 9 hole board, a half a round of golf. I am not the master golfer you may have though I was. Indeed, mini-golf in high school and this dartboard is the closest I have ever come to the real thing, but I am satisfied with both and feel no need to hit the driving range.

What you are seeing below is a hole in one on the eight hole. How is this possible? Well, I have decided I do not like the official rules that go along with this game so I have made up my own that I use when I use this board for practice.


The above shot happened like this. It was a fresh round and I was holding three darts. I had just completed the 7 hole the round before and I was just now about to attempt the 8 hole. Normally I would have taken a shot at the red dot on the 8 hole to attempt a hole in one, but I forgot, and so the first dart went to the first fairway. I hit it. The second dart need to go into the second (light gree) fairway that surrounds the putting green, but I missed into the water. Acording to my rules if you hit water you are obliged to start the hole over. So, now remembering that I allow a single dart to be throw for a hole in one (only when you are about to start a hole), and having only one dart left in my hand, I went for it, and nailed it. The regular rules call for a very short lived and probably uneventful game. My rules call for something a little different. Here are some bullet points to my rules:

• Each hole must be completed in order before moving on to the next
• When you are starting a hole, you may throw one dart to attempt the Hole in One, if you miss, you must finish the hole the old fashioned way, one fairway at a time.
• Failing a hole in one, you must first hit the initial darker green fairway, then the lighter green fairway, and then the green fairway that surrounds the water and sand traps protecting the putting green.
• You must then aim for the putting green. If you hit the red hole you are donne and may move on. If you hit the putting green then you may attempt a put by going for the large red bullseye in the center of the board.
• If you ever hit a sand trap you must go back one fairway. If you ever hit a water trap you must start the hole completely over (and thus are entitled to another Hole in One shot).
• The outer red bullseye ring in the center of the board is only used by novices, and is not used when I practice at home.

So that's it. I hope someday I can play against other people online with this board but in the meantime I'll just break it out from time to time for my own enjoyment.

A Goodly Night of Darting

I had a terrific league night last night. Not only did my team win, but I won all my games except one of them and I hit some good numbers in the process. Lots of triple 20's but oddly never more than one in a turn. So while I don't necessarily have any 120+ numbers to report I at least had many good rounds of 60+ to give myself shots at the out.

The highlight of last night would have to be the hat trick I threw in my one losing game of cricket and the fact that I was hot on bulls and was able to hit lots of them in the cricket games.

I won my singles chicago game in two games, winning first DIDO 301 and then cricket. I won the cork to start the match and chose 301 (as I always do since I m confident with doubles) I got in on my second round and then whittled my way down to a sloppy 39 out. I decided to go S7, D16, but with the firsst dart I missed into the S19, leaving 20. Then I missed the D10 into the S6, leaving 14. But then hit the D7 with the last dart to save the out. Then, the opponent chose cricket for the second game. I opened with 4 20's and after that I hit at least three marks per round until the 17's, but I am certain I averaged at least 3 marks per round for the whole game. When it came down to bulls I hit them quickly, in two rounds and then I got a nice compliment from my opponent. I hit the winning bull witth my first dart, and he said:

"I figured. You usually hit it first dart."

That felt good. All my doubkes games went equally well. In my doubles chicago match the opponents won the cork and chose cricket. I opened with a commanding 4 20's and a single bull. I ended up carrying most of the game for our team and at one point we fell behind. They were pointing us on the we only had the bulls to point with and they had the 16's. They kept pounding the 16's to point us instead of going for the win by throwing at bull. Badd strategy on their part. I ended up just killing the bulls in that game and there was no point deficit too large for me tto overcome, I must have hit 10 bulls in just a few rounds. We won, and then they chose 301. In the 301 game my partner left me with 6. I missed low with the first dart. So now I had 6 remaining with 2 darts. In practice I always go S2 D2 in that situation because aa high miss would leave me with 3 if I were to stay on the D3. And I hit it. S2, D2. I felt vindicated in my strategy.


In my doubles SIDO 501 and DIDO 401, we won both of them. I hit the winning double myself in each game but they were not high outs. The second game I won on bones! The first was a low out as well, probaably D2 but I do not remember that well. In my doubles cricket game my partner couldn't hit anything and I was able to carry us well, but not well enough. Despite a haat trick and many other bulls we were just not able to overcome a two person team.

So that was it. A good night out for me. Even in my one loss I had something to be proud of. I hope next week goes as well!!

Badge of Honor

Thanks to the good folks over at SEWA (and by 'good folks' I mean Erik) I have received in the mail my very first dart patch. And all I had to do to earn it was enjoy the fruits of his labor. The patch is terrific. Now if I can only find that elusive '26' patch, the Sewa patch won't be so lonely on my shirt!

For those of you who have never heard of the internet (because that is about what it would take for you to not have heard of SEWA), the most active darts forum in the ODC (That stands for Online Dart Community) is here:

SEWA

It is the result of the blood sweat and tears of one gentleman who was saddened at the decline of the formor great dartplayer.net site and who decided to offer the equivalent internet sanctuary to wayward net connected dart players all over the world.

So stop by, sign up, and enjoy the company. I might also add that the subject is always darts and dart related and that you can rest assured that if you have a dart related question it will be answered there by many voices quite promptly.

Cheers Erik, and thanks again.

Back Blogging

I have created several back blogs within The Dart Indoors. What is a back blog? It is a blog post that is back dated to a date before the blog actually started. The inaugural post in this blog was posted on September 20, 2004. It was a post requesting help identifying and finding some darts that I had scavanged from an ashtray in a bar (discarded by their former owner). So any post you see on The Dart Indoors dated before that has been back blogged. But I only back blog for the purposes of gathering similar posts, or "utility" posts as I like to call them, into a central point for perusal. What makes this worthwhile is the way that blogspot will archive posts. When an Archive is created, all post from a single month are moved to one page, making it easy to say things like: "Click on this archive to see all of my...." etc. The following is a quick summary of my main Back Blogs:

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May, 2004: Dartboard Thumbnails.

This back blog was created for no other reason than to showcase my dartboard collection. I have created a single post with a series of small (but clickable) photos of each board and a link that will go to a different more detailed blog post discussing the various boards. If you notice, in the upper right section of the blog, there is a section called 'Enjoy this Linkage' with a link that says My Boards. Well, clicking this link will take you to the May, 2004 backblog. It used to take you to the June 2004 backblog but I decided that there was too much scrolling involved to see all my boards at a glance. So now, the June 2004 backblog (discussed below) is now only accessible by clicking on the names of the boards in the Thumbnails backblog or by clicking on the June 2004 Archive link.



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June, 2004: My Dartboards

More detailed descriptions of my boards.












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July, 2004: My Darts

This is a gathering of (what used to be) my darts collection.  These days I am thinking differently in terms of how to group them in the blog.  Still, the July 2004 archive will remain, as a reminder of all the fun and pretty darts I have had in my collection over the years.  Many got traded away for different sets.

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Club House Golf

What a great find. This is one of the more interesting bristle boards I have ever seen, and I bought it in brand new condition. Any holes in the board are made by me and the ultra-light apex style darts that came with the board. My buddy Barn and I staarted throwing a game on it but it was so hard to hit the fairways and holes that we had to quit for dinner. You can really see the biscuits in the board, and I would say not very many tons of pressure went into making the board itself as the darts, even the light ones, slide into the board with minimal effort. This makes me think the board would get chewed up quickly so I will not play on it too much.


The score boards are a sort of black plexiglass with white writing on them and seem to be set up for a very particular sort of golf game. There were no rules sent with the board so I am not real sure what the exact rules are but probably they are similar to real golf. The board also came with one of those white wax markers for keeping score on the black plexiglass. Pretty clever and nice looking set up.


The Board also came with six ultra-light Apex darts. They only weight XX grams. I think these were included so the board would last a bit longer. The sisal fibers are so loose that if you were to throw your average 26 gram MP dart the board would be destroyed in short order!!


One thing I really like about this board is the attention to detail and fine craftsmanship. There are some extras that they didn't really have to include in the building of it such as the sign on top the cabinet, the little golf flag, the green material behind the board, etc. Very nicely done! Here is a good view of the overall effect:

One For The Team

I was subbing for a friends team this week and had a good time doing it. We lost by one game, 11-10, but we put up a good fight against an extremely good team. Probably one of the best in this season's line up.

My performance was hot and cold. In my first singles 401 game I hit a Ton-25, and then later won the game by taking out the double 2. It was a close game and we both missed a couple shots at the out which is the only reason I won that one. It was the first game of the night and my opponent, once he got loose, really hit good numbers in his later games so I was quite please to get the first win against him.

My second singles match was a Cricket against their best player. A guy named Mason, who is truly a superior darter. He is consistent and strong at the oche and he is a good guy to boot. He won that game but not by much. He hit three triple 18s on me bu otherwise I think I would have had that game. I was on fire, and against most other players probably would have won. But in this case I was out classed for sure. I enjoyed that game even though I lost.

Mt darts were unnoteworthy for the rest of the evening until... I took out double 2 to WIN THE TEAM GAME! That's right. Something I have personally never done (according to memory anyway). That's right, I took out the money shot and was quite happy to do so. In my own league I would have been eight dollars richer since we all put a dollar behind the board for the team game. Alas, there is no such tradition here.

Here is a preview of an upcoming post:


Details to come ;)