When it comes to choosing a good dart board, your available budget and your dart skills play an important role.
Paper board
For kids or someone who never played darts before, a paper dart board might be the best option to start with. It doesn’t last that long however and you also cannot rotate it, which is possible with the more expensive dart boards.
Bristle dart board
If you are a bit more experienced with the game of darts, you might want to buy a traditional board, a bristle dart board which is made out of compacted sisal, a fiber from the Agave-plant, which is used a lot in making ropes and dart boards.
Bristle boards look more like a professional dartboard than the paper version and last longer, provided you rotate the board, so that certain areas of the part, e.g. the 20-area, do not wear out. Bristle dart boards are available in various price categories, but you can already buy good boards at a relatively low price.
Please make sure that you do not make your bristle board wet, for instance when cleaning it. The sisal will get swollen, destroying your dart board.
Magnetic and electronic
There are also magnetic dart boards, which require magnetic flat-tipped darts. Magnetic dart boards with magnetic darts are a safer option for little children.
Electronic dart boards are made out of plastic and have little holes, for which you need plastic-tipped darts. These machines will keep your score automatically and offer in general a variety of games.
How to hang a dart board
The center of the dart board, the bullseye, should hang 5 feet and 8 inches, approximately 172.7 centimeters, from the floor. The oche, the line a darts player stands at, is placed 7 feet and 9 ¼ inches (236.9 cm) from the board.
It is recommended to hang a cork board behind your dart board, to prevent your wall from getting damaged. Specialized dart shops also sell backboards or wall protectors.
Good lighting on the dart board can help improving your dart skills, but make sure that the light does not leave any shadows on the board. The best option is to hang two lamps on the ceiling, approximately four feet away from the board.
