I tried to restring an old wooden Olympic Yo-Yo with some new strings that work fine on other Yo-Yo’s. However, for the Olympic, the string is too loose around the axel; I can’t even wind the thing up (and if I can it just falls and stays down).
Are the axels of old Yo-Yos much thinner than new ones? Any way I can make it work?
It could well be the string. Some older wooden yoyos work best with something like type 8 cotton string.
Those were made in Sweden by Kalmar Trissan. There is nothing unusual about the design. The axle appears to be a little thicker than those on Tom Kuhn or BC yoyos.
Keep making the string tension tighter until it finally gets responsive, after a few sleepers the string may get a little more cooperative and you can start adjusting it to a more neutral tension.
Pinch the string just above the yoyo and spin the yoyo clockwise to tighten the string on the axle. Then throw some hard sleepers until it responds right.
The Gnome gave me this advice a couple months ago and I’ve used it to revisit the response on 4 or 5 different fixies. It is a solid method and I will use it forever.
Worked! Thank you so much to all! What a great, helpful community.