Technical Developments & Improving Standards.

(See Other Articles; Bring Back Self Adhesive Flights , Better Darts , Diamond Wire Dartboards & Different Dart Boards.)

It is probably fair to say that the standard of just about all sports has risen dramatically over the last few decades and I think this is true of darts as well. In my youth the likes of John Lowe were winning major competitions with averages that would compare to those of decent County players of today. Then, ordinary league players rarely hit 180’s with only one, or two hit by anybody in a whole season. Nowadays it is not a case of hitting one, but how many you can hit in a season. The one league that I play in, and that has just finished, had one player who hit 8 and two other players who hit 4 and 5 respectively. Numerous other players hit one, or two besides and that is only a normal pub league.

Talking to my brother over lunch the other day he asked the question whether I thought that there were any technical improvements in darts that could have contributed to the higher standard of throwing. The thought had never really crossed my mind before, but there has been one big and important advance in darts technology since the 50’s and 60’s and that is of course the general introduction of Tungsten darts. However, there have been several other significant developments in dart technology as well.

In the good old days nearly all darts were made of brass, which is much lighter than Tungsten and the early Brass darts had wooden stems that simply pushed into the barrels with flights made of torn pieces of paper that were inserted into cross cuts made in the ends of the stems. These stems and flights were not particularly reliable and the wooden stem would often simply drop out. Feather flights were introduced that still had a wooden stem, but a plastic thread on the end. These were favoured for many years as they gave a good balance to the dart and flight trajectory, although they were relatively expensive and easily damaged beyond repair. Gradually the old feather flights with wooden stems were superceded by plastic stems and plastic flights. These were far cheaper, more durable and the early self-adhesive flights could usually be resealed if a dart split them apart by going down the end of them. Before then, many is the time that a player threw a dart with the old feather flights in for the Bull only to have his flight completely ruined by his opponent hitting the end of his dart and splitting the wooden shaft bearing his flights, or stripping off some of his feathers. This of course gave rise to the jokey jeer of, “Go for his flights!” (With the modern plastic it is almost impossible to deliberately damage someone’s flights in such a way.)

Initially, Tungsten darts were very expensive and quite a few players who worked at engineering type companies managed to get their own darts machined out of “Waste Tungsten.” However pure Tungsten is a very brittle metal and I came across one twit who had used pure tungsten to make his darts instead of the normal compound that has a little Copper, or Nickel added to it to stop it being so brittle. His darts were so brittle that when one bounced out and hit a tiled floor a large chunk of metal simply chipped off his barrel completely ruining the dart.

The introduction of Tungsten barrels meant that darts could be much thinner and still have the same weight. The fat Old brass "Bombers," that so many used to play with were easily replaced with darts that were probably half the thickness and lighter brass darts were also replaced with even thinner Tungsten darts that would have been impossible to make out of Brass. The thinner darts also brought about the introduction of a smaller thread on stems. Gradually the older style thread has been phased out, although plastic stems with the old style thread on are still sometimes available even now. An attempt has been made by various manufacturers, with different designs, to replace plastic stems with metal. Some designs are thinner than the plastic meaning that they are less likely to be hit by another dart and cause bounce outs, but most players will agree that they can be very difficult to insert your plastic flights into. Indeed it is quite easy to ruin a set of flights when trying to fit them into tight metal shafts. This, together with their extra cost, puts off a lot of players from using them.  

However, the new Tungsten darts did catch on in a big way and have almost entirely replaced all other metals. Slim-line Tungsten darts obviously took up a lot less space in the board, in particular in the treble twenties making it much easier to get 3 darts in one bed. Even with a heavy dart of over 30 grams there was now plenty of room for “3 in a bed,” and lighter darts had far more room still.

So with the thinner and more reliable and balanced stems and flights that have been introduced over the years along with the thinner Tungsten darts it is perhaps no surprise that the standard of play has gone up significantly over the last 5, or 6 decades.