If you've ever been shopping for online bristle dart boards you probably found more choices than Lady Gaga has costumes! What makes one bristle dart board better than another? Well, for starters don't buy a dart board actually made of bristle, or hogs hair. That practice was given up long ago in favor of a new material, sisal fiber, a plant that is grown in warm climates. The advantage to using sisal fiber is that it has self healing properties that close the hole up after the dart is pulled out. This greatly extends the life of the board. Most traditional dart boards made today are made of sisal fiber. You might find some cheap boards made of wound paper but since sisal has become so popular and affordable there is no reason to go with inferior materials like wound paper just to save a few bucks. So make sure it is made of sisal fiber.
The next biggest difference is the spider, which are the strips dividing each section. Again you will find some cheap boards with a plastic spider. Stay away from those. Most traditional boards today have a metal spider and the little bit more money it costs is well worth it. Now, regarding the spider, the thinner the dividers and the fewer staples holding them in, the better. This way your dart is less likely to hit the divider or a staple and bounce out. At the bottom of the line we have spiders made of rounded wire and a lot of staples holding it to the board. An improvement to this is the use of triangular or diamond shaped wire which helps deflect the dart off of it and into the dart board, thus reducing the number of bounce-outs. The best examples like the Viper Razorback utilize knife-blade thin wire embedded directly into the surface which totally eliminates the use of staples that sometimes get in the way. Also look for a staple-free bullseye, a feature not limited to top of the line models anymore but found in intermediate level models as well. Nodor was the first company to offer a staple-free bullseye, which Nodor calls the Supabull, and the Nodor Supamatch Bristle Dart Board comes with the latest version of this innovation, Supabull II, which features slanted edges to guide the dart into the target for increased scores.
A very important feature for longevity is the movable number ring. You've heard of rotating the tires on your car for more even wear? The movable number ring works by the same principle. On cheap models you will find all the numbers printed directly on the dart board which in and of itself isn't bad. The problem is that some dart games use only certain sections of the playing surface, not the whole board. For example, Cricket uses only the numbers 15 to 20. So if you play a lot of Cricket you will find that over time sections 15 to 20 will start looking a bit rough, even with boards made of self-healing sisal fiber. Eventually those sections will be completely worn out while the rest of the playing surface looks practically new. If only there was a way to reassign the numbers 15 to 20 to those unused portions. It would be like having a brand new dart board again. The solution was the movable number ring. This would allow the owner to rotate the board on a regular basis, say once a month, and still keep the 20 at the top. Now each number has been reassigned a new section of playing surface giving players a cleaner, less used area to play on. This brilliant feature allows for much more even wear and helps extend the life of the board much further than a one without a movable number ring.
To sum things up, make sure you choose a board made of sisal fiber because they last longer under heavy play. Look for a dart board with the thinnest metal spider and the least number of staples for fewer bounce-outs. And to get the most life out of your dart board look for a movable metal number ring so you can rotate the board regularly for more even wear.
There you have it. Keep these key factors in mind when shopping for a new bristle dart board and you're sure to come out a winner!
