Buying your first equipment



1. One shouldn't buy dart equipment in a supermarket, a furniture shop or a do-it yourself store - to be sure you sometimes can find it offered there. Most of the time it's a packet consisting of darts and a dartboard. But most of those offers are not worth the money and you want to enjoy playing and not to be disappointed.
It is not easy to find a real dartshop but darts often are sold in sports shops and shops which sell weapons or fishing equipment. Have a look in the Yellow Pages or ask in a dart forum for help.


2. Should you not be able to find a shop you of course can buy online but then I would recommend first to go to a dart club nearby and to ask whether you could not take some of the darts into your hand to find out with which kind of barrel you feel comfortable.


3. Don't buy a dart only because it is a signature dart - that means a dart supposedly used by a top player. That does not mean it is a dart that will work for you. Signature darts often even are more expensive. Try to find a way really to have a dart in your hand - better to throw it at a board before you decide which darts to buy.


4. Good darts are not really cheap, very cheap often are brass darts but you better shouldn't buy those as they are thicker then the tungsten darts. One can't say the more tungsten the better is a dart. 80 % tungsten is most popular and it is enough for a good dart.


5. Make sure you buy a bristle board und don't buy the cheapest one. The cheapest board often will not be long-lasting and might come to pieces soon. On no account buy a paper board.


6. When you buy your first set of darts it probably will not be the set you'll use for ever. There probably don't exist many dart players who only own a single set of darts. You to be sure will see other sets from time to time you would like to try. It might even happen you buy a set you will not like at all, to be honest that happens quite often. But don't get annoyed - darts is not an expensive sport - should you've bought the wrong bicycle it would have been much worse!


7. I think it would be a good idea for a beginner to buy plastic shafts, most metallic shafts easily get bend. When you get better you still can change to metal would you prefer it - you even could buy the expensive titanium shafts which are rather durable. But for a beginner shafts and flights are really "consumer goods". And they are not really expensive.


8. For a beginner it is a good idea to buy shafts of different length and flights of different materials and shapes and then to play around to find your "ideal" combination. Most players end with medium shafts and standard flights but it might be for your throw short shafts and mini flights are best. That is something you really have to find out yourself.


9. As a beginner it is better not to buy too light a dart - light darts don't pardon a faulty technique as much as more heavy ones. Usually for beginners darts between 22 and 25 g are recommended. Should you be able to buy your darts in a dartshop ask for a scale. All three barrels of a set should have the same weight. Most of the time that is the case with darts by well-known manufacturers. But it can happen that the weights differ!


10. For a beginner a board, a set of darts an assortment of flights and shafts is enough. There exists a lot of accessories - - quite helpful are thin metal rings which keep the flights in the shafts but you can forget the rest when you start to play.


11. It would be quite helpful to buy a some kind of scoreboard to hang up beside the board though it not necessarily has to be a real dart scoreboard.


12. You shouldn't hang the board directly on the wall - you should somehow protect the wall. To be sure at the beginning you will not always hit the board. You can buy a dartboard surround but you could instead protect the wall with cork panels or some kind of thick fabric which is much cheaper.


13. Should you hang up your dartboard where you have a parquet flooring or tile flooring you should protect your floor as well. To be sure there will be bouncers, there will be darts which drop and that wouldn't be good for your floor and for your darts. You can buy dart mats which in the measures of an oche but every kind of thick fabric which covers the floor will do as well.


14. Try to light your dartboard in a way that there are no shadows on the board, a simple spotlight will do. You'll find more about it soon in the chapter "Lighting".


15. Finally I want to emphasize again: Better buy a quality equipment from the beginning. Darts is really compared to other sports inexpensive. To buy somewhere a cut-prize offer might in the end be rather expensive and ruin all your fun!






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