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January 21, 2009 Sharpening Your Darts If you have a set of steel-tip darts, you do need a darts sharpener. But it’s best to not sharpen your darts with it. I know that sounds strange, but darts should actually have round tips and not sharp points. Sharp points have a tendency to nick wires and they bounce out way more often than darts that are rounded at the tips. Sharp points will also take fibers out of your dartboard with each removal of the darts from the board. This causes unnecessary damage to your dartboard. When you buy brand new darts, they are almost always too sharp. The pointy tips look great in the packaging but aren’t the greatest to start playing with. Use a small sharpening stone to remove burrs at the tip of all sharp points. You can also use the sharpening stone to round off the point a little. So what should your dart tip look like? How do you know if the tip of your dart is too sharp? The point of a dart should look just like a ball-point pen. It is rounded. Most people don’t think it would be, but it is. A rounded dart will just slide off the wires instead of putting a knick in the wires and bouncing out. Rounding your darts will reduce the number of bounce outs you have. So what is the point to sharpening your darts if they are rounded anyway? Well, natural wear on darts points will reduce their rounded curves and the darts will actually become flat on the ends. And a flat dart point is worse than a sharp point. A flat tip on a dart will almost always bounce out when it hits the wires. A flattened point will cause damage to the dartboards fibers. Until Next Time, Tony Recommended Product - Leather Keyring Darts Sharpener |
