Dart board

The dart board has seen many developments over the years from simple "log ends" to today's electronic dart board with all the bells and whistles you could wish for. Originally the boards were made from wood, and were soaked overnight in water to stop them from splitting. The preferred wood used was elm. This was a bit of a chore for the publican to say the least.

Then a company called nodor invented a new dartboard made from short pieces of rope laced together and bound in a steel hoop to produce the first Bristle board. That was in 1935 and Nodor is still going today at its factory in Kenya where the sisal used to make the dart board is grown. (Sisal is also used to make rope)

The Bristle dart board was a great advance, dartboards no longer had to be soaked overnight and the elm board died out. The Bristle board was developed further and staple free boards were produced, most famously the Winmau blade dart board. Also the "spider" or wire used to seperate the scoring area was made in a diamond shape to further reduce bounce outs. The bristle board is used in all the major dart tournaments around the world.

Then came electronics and the electronic dart board arrived. Arachnid were one of the first companies to come out with an electronic dart board and others followed. The BIG advantage was of course the board kept score for you and now there are soft tip tournaments around the world, indeed the top soft tip player Mensur Suljovic from Sandzak near Bosnia recently beat the great Phil Taylor in a soft tip match last year. The beauty of the electronic boards is that all the boards can be connected together and the scores can be handled centrally on a computer, a great boon to tournament play.

So while the bristle boards dominate the professional circuit the future lies in the electronic game, especially since the advent of the bristle electronic board like the Halex bristle tech dart boards which can take the steel tip darts as well as the soft tips. Indeed the latest offering from Halex even marks out the toe line with a Laser! The technology of the dart board marches on.