I’m getting about 8 to 10 seconds on an unmodified No Jive with type 10 string.
Does that sound about right?
If I bump the gap with an o-ring and add a friction disc will it got up significantly?
Your getting expected sleep time but your not going to increase sleep time substantially by adding o rings. Your best attempt at increasing the sleep time (without doing a bearing conversion) would be to wax your string and use the thinnest string you have. (Type 10 is rather thick!)
Ok good. Thanks!
I was a little concerned when I saw Ed talking about “30s Sleepers” here:
I know he’s Ed, but still 
Ed cheats…his no-jives have Hemi motors installed 
Fixed axle sleep time will improve as the axle breaks in as well. A new no-jive will be noticeably grippier than one that has been played for a while. As for string - I prefer type 10, but as mentioned already try a thinner string and see how you like it.
Yeah…the wooden sleeves will wear grooves and smooth spots in the center after some time…that is when they have to be replaced if you ever plan on using it for looping!
Ok, so the grove is better for sleeping?
I’m terrible at looping so I’m not worried about looping at all. I don’t even have shoes that tie…
^^^ ROFL
you DON’T want to burn a groove into the axle. that will cause breakage way faster. if you think about it, a groove means more surface area is in contact which = more friction.
a 10s sleeper tugged back to the hand is solid on a stock no jive w/stock string. 15s is terrific. 20s is outstanding. i’m talking about just a power throw pulled back, NOT twisting the string and letting it go to extinction. shimming it with an o-ring MAY help, but it may also hurt, since a wider gapped fixie will tend to lean a bit. several of the thin-axle tmbr models will outsleep a no jive easy. i’ve never really been interested in “long sleepers” for their own sake. they can be a pretty solid indicator of experience and advanced technique, but to me it isn’t worth focusing on since they WILL develop organically out of a few years’ practice.
definitely just keep throwing and experimenting with strings and/or gap widths and your times will improve. but, for sure, some of my favorite fixed tricks ever require virtually NO sleep time, so there’s that!
Thanks! That’s what I was thinking.
Also, I’m not trying to sleep just for the heck of it either.
I just need a couple extra seconds to get through a couple tricks.
Throwing fixed is like starting all over again.
I’m ok at unresponsive, but now I feel like a total noob.
It’s fun though, trying to tame the beast.
high five.
not enough people appreciate the value in feeling like (or in BEING) a n00b. almost everybody wants to be an expert, and then they want to be a master, and then they want to be a champion. and for lots of players, success means getting through those pesky obstacles as quickly as possible. but what makes playing yo-yo worthwhile are all of the sessions and knuckle-whacks and narrow-misses that make up the intervals between those steps. sometimes it seems the worst stigma you can have as a yo-yo player is “beginner”, and players want to shake that label off like it’s on fire. but HAVING a beginning is crucial and awesome and so meaningful.
“in the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”
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Fixed that for you. 
If you’re doing longer tricks on a No Jive that involve string layers in the gap, then a shim/hubstack o-ring under the axle makes a world of difference in my experience. It does, as Ed noted, make the yoyo more title prone, and I find it also makes it less good for looping. In any event, hope you’re having fun with it!
I see what you did there 
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A long, long time ago, in another place and time…
people talked of doing a couple of wraps of string around a new axle, leaving both ends free. They were said to grab the loose ends and pull the string back and forth a few times to remove the rough spots on the axle. It was said that the thick packaging string worked well for this. But I guess that’s only a legend lost somewhere in the past.
Waxing the string is a bit of an art, somewhat akin to lubing a bearing. Less (or none) is more. Too much will make the yoyo more responsive. Bruised knuckle time.