Practice Ring Howto

I have a gotten a couple emails regarding this practice ring so I thought I'd do a blog entry on it. They are easy to make, obviously, and there are a couple of tricks I use to make them more convenient than just a ring on a string.

The first thing you need is a three ply string with loops on both ends. The reason I make mine three ply is to guard against losing the ring due to nailing the string with a dart, which has happened to me twice. This way, if you nail a string and break it you have a couple more to keep your ring from clattering to the floor. To make the 3-ply string: start with an excessively long length of normal sewing thread, fold it into thirds, and then, before tying your overhand knot in the end, fold over all three of the threads once more. With the end of your 3-ply string completely doubled over tie your overhand knot, this ensures that your triple redundancy exists in the loops as well as the length between the ring and the needle.

The ring itself is a simple keychain ring. The diameter of the bull is 1.25 inches. Unfortunately I could not find a keychain ring the exact same diameter, but I did find one slightly smaller at 1.125 inches. Good enough for me.

The part that sticks in the board: I tried several different ideas, all of which had failings. I started with a simple pin (such as one finds in brand new button down shirts), but this had the problem of the loop in the thread slipping off too frequently when you nick the ring with your dart and it goes flailing about. So I then tried using a normal thumb tack, and tightening the string around it so it would not slip off the end of it but this had problems too. The thumb tack is too big and I would frequently hit it. Either destroying it ot knocking it out of the board. Then I decided to try the approach I now use. Use some wire cutters to snip off the needle and spring of a cloths pin. Then thread the loop in the string into the spring of the clothspin and you have a near perfect system.

The string will not slip off either the ring or the pin holding it to the board and the string is triple redundant. Furthermore, it is easily move to any part of the board. if you feel you need practice with the other triples (as I definitely do!).

Good Darts,
Zeeple.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

First Hat Trick with Bombs

Just a quick entry today. This is my first hat trick with my new darts. Configured as thus:

Barrels: 24g FP Smooth Bombs
Shafts: Black Aluminum In-Between
Flights: Red Broken Glass Spiraline


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

Mystery Darts Re-Posted

I need help identifying these darts and obtaining at least one more of them, so that I can complete my set. Currently I have only two. I would like to get at least one more of the same style and weight.

Here is their story. I played on a B League team in Seattle a few years ago. And at that time there was a good team who had never been beaten. Well we beat them that night, by a slim margin, and we were the first team to ever do so, in any season. We later met them in the final Play-off match and beat them again for first place.

The first night we beat that team, one of their guys broke a point, and abandoned his darts. I kept them as a keepsake to remember our fine victory, but alas, I did not know then that points can be replaced, and so I didn't keep the broken one!

But they are fine darts. Slim yet heavy (25 grams), with a good feel when you throw them. Thus, I am trying to complete the set, yet, I do not know what company made them. Anyone who recognizes the pattern, please let me know!

UPDATE: I have two solid leads on these darts. One source says they may be Freeflight Mavericks, and a poster over at www.dartplayer.net has the exact set and says they are made by a now defunct (or at least very hard to find) company called Wise, out of GB.

UPDATE: I am reposting this blog entry for the benefit of the Cleveland Darter Club, who has graciously agreed to post a link on their site at: http://www.darter.org (Thanks guys!)


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

Here is something I have been doing lately during practice. I found a key ring that is almost the diameter of the bull and I suspended it over the T20 using a pin and a length of thread. If you zoom in on the picture you can make out both the pin and the thread. I think this is helping me with T20 practice but I am not sure yet. The idea is that when throwing at the bull I reasonably expect to hit it. I have a lot of confidence and decent grouping when I am doing bull practice, but my T20 throwing suffers quite a bit. So I decided to try to simulate the bull throwing mentality a bit for the T20. The picture below is an actual practice round. A good one for me. The third dart was so far off though, that it could not be included in the picture. Now when I practice T20's, I go for the ring and ignore the actual triple.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

I am very excited about my new purchase. These are Hi Tec Bomb's which I bought from http://www.dartattack.com . I have been experimenting pretty heavily with different flight and shaft combinations but I have not yet determined the best way to build these darts. The way they are in the picture below, though, is as thus: 24 gram smooth fixed point Bomb barrels, short blue Electro shafts and standard dark blue dimplex flights. I bought these because I felt I needed a tapered barrel with a fixed point. I like the Hammerhead GT's pretty well for their strong taper, but the moving points make them overall poor darts. Not to mention I bought them far too heavy (28 g). So I will stick with these for a month or so and see if I can learn how to throw them!


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

The Alpha-Omega dart case. Also a good case as you can carry the darts fully assembled, but I don't like this one as much since larger flights are a tight fit. This includes Spiraline flights.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

Dartmaster Solo. IMHO, the best case made for darts. The design even allows for spiraline flights without "flattening" their curvature which is a bonus for me. Also, if you wanted to keep your stuff with you at all times (say you are in a seedy bar on league night), you can just carry around the insert which easily fits in your back pocket.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

This is the closest I have ever come to a deadeye. 5 count in the bulls is nothing to spit at though. The darts: 24 gram Dart Freaks, short aluminum shafts and broken glass heart shaped spiraline flights with standard aluminum flight protectors. Maybe next time.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

Spike Spiraline

Here is a pic of my new "Spike" style Spiraline flights. The entire ensemble is as thus:

Flights: Spike Spiraline
Shafts: short Hacksaw
Barrels: 24 gram Powerpoint Dimplex

You can also see there my Unicorn wooden dart case. I seem to like the flights, I am not sure about the shafts, and the darts are not worth a dime. They are not very well weighted, and I could never quite find a shaft length or flight style combination to really make them fly true. If they wanted to improve them they'd either have to make them longer and thinner, or forward weight them.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

Converting Soft to Steel

Although I don't really play soft tip anymore, I still like all my old soft tip darts, and it is hard to find good steel tip darts in the lighter weights. Thus conversion points is a very good option. O-rings will keep them tight, and you can even put hammerhead style tips on most soft tip darts. Although with hammerhead tips you will need to pick up some "blue" Lok-Tite at the hardware store.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

More spininng flights. The product name is 'Spiraline' but most sites will just call the spinning flights. I have only ever seen a few criticisms of this flight style. One was that they create more drag causing the dart to fly slower. If that is true then it doesn't seem to be a problem for me. The other is that you cannot put flight protectors on them because they will not fit. As you can see from the photo, this is not true. In fact I'd say it is pretty essential to have the flight protectors on spiraline flights because they are more apt to split since they angle in to a "V" shape.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

Spiraline Flights

I just recently got an order of spinning flights from http://www.horizondarts.com They have a decent selection and there are few sites out there these days where you can get them. If you have never played around with these flights you definitely should. Their benefits are many. In-flight wobble reduction, greater accuracy. And plus they are just more fun to throw.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

12 gram Crown Jewels by Harrows with steel tips and Spiraline "spinning" flights. This is my preferred flight, but they are hard to find these days.

As always, click the image for a larger picture.

These flights are unlike any I have seen thus far and appear to be known as "Delta II" flights. They have good surface area. Not bad.

As always, click the image for a larger picture.

My first Hat Trick with my Hammerhead GT's.

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This is reportedly a Maverick made by FreeFlight. It is an old design and I am told it is no longer in production. If anyone has a set and is willing to sell it please let me know. I am also interested in broken darts or incomplete sets in this model dart. Thanks!


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

I have recently been asked about the darts in the picture of the Hat Trick a few posts back. They are my 23 gram Warriors by Shooter's Edge. They are fixed point darts and I have never seen anything like them. The shaft they take is the top portion of the "Spinster Aluminum" shafts. It took a little while to learn how to throw them properly as the gripping is also different. The dip in the middle appears to be a finger placement but I do not use it as such (as I rarely, if ever, place a finger on the point when throwing). There are a few other designs and weights in this dart but this was the only one I could find when I discovered their existence and sought them out.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

Among my dart friends we have a special feat we call the "Doubles Trick." It is like a Hat Trick but instead of all three darts in the bull, you need to hit all three of your marks during doubles practice (I guess it doesn't have to be practice, but if you aim all your darts at the double ring during a live game you are just goofing around...) Slop doesn't count of course. As you can see in this pic, I was doing doubles practice, clockwise, and hit my first three marks. Cheers.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

This is a pretty good close up of the wear on the blades of my Bandit. It is still a phenomenal board. It has a ton of life left in it. I took this shot a couple of weeks ago after hitting the trick with my Warriors. Click on the photo to get the full image and then make sure you are zoomed in. Most browsers will shrink an image to fit the window.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

2nd Lifetime Maximum

I recall the day I hit this Ton-80 very well. I'd had these Freaks for not very long just a few months and I recall thinking they should help me find the sweet spot better since they were so skinny. When this max popped out of the board I was quite happy since it was the first one I could take a picture of. I figured if I could repeat my first ton-80 that they would just start rolling off my fingers. I have 25 of them as of this writing, and I am hoping for more (I am back blogging this by more than three years).