How long until strings stretched out?
 

Newbie question here.

Had my newly acquired Yamaha CG131S (the one with the buzzing 6 string), restrung on Thursday with LaBella 427 Elites.

It's been three days now and I've been playing it 30 minutes or so a day and the strings are still stretching it appears as I have to tighten the strings a bit each time I tune it up.

How long does it usually take before the strings will stop stretching?

it takes around 3-5 days for that to go away. the strings just go from being under no tension, to being under over 20lbs of tension each. the more you play, the faster they will stretch out and not fall out of tune easily

Depends on the type of strings and how many times they're wrapped around the rollers. Thereafter, they will be affected by temperature and humidity which will stretch/contract the nylon or bow/unbow the neck slightly.

SS is about right. 3-5 for nylon. Shorter for carbon. Longer for nylgut.

I still wind-up tuning my strings everyday. It's the nature of nylon. A small price to pay for the tone and playability. :)

SS and Guitarvlog are right...3 to 5 for nylon...less for carbon...6 weeks for fishing line...just tune every time you pick it up

How long it takes for nylon strings to reach the point where they will hold their tuning depends on what a guitarist does to stretch the strings. I knew an old classical guitarist, a Spaniard, who after the first tuning, would grab the strings over the sound hole and stretch them back and forth far enough to clear the sound board. I always felt that such a heavy handed approach risked permanently denting the strings at the nut. To stabilize the strings, I prefer to tune one note sharp and tune down to E after about an hour or so.

That's a very bad idea that shows a lack of understanding of how synthetic materials react to these stresses. Force-stretching by pulling increases the likelihood that the strings will stretch unevenly which means that the string diameter in some sections will be smaller. This will result in intonation issues.

Don't do it.

GuitarVlog is right. No forced stretching. I was doing some fret work on one of my guitiars, and had a set of Savarez Corum Alliances on there. While I was working I stretched the high e string off the board a bit to get underneath it to work. It never intonated again. Had to change the strings. It doesn't help anyway. They still won't settle down any faster.

The only "forced stretching" that works without known detrimental effects is to tune the guitar up 1-2 steps but it only accelerates the settling process and you still wind-up with the instrument being "out of tune". Even this method cannot address the issue of the trebles settling in slower than the basses, so you will have to keep retuning the trebles anyway.

Just accept nylon for what it is and don't change strings when you're days away from a gig.

I came up with an alternative because I think such extreme stretching isn't a good idea and I believe that was conveyed in my post.

It was. I just wanted to make sure the OP didn't get any ideas. :)

when I first change a string set, I do tune up a little, less than one step. I don't think it helps much with the stretching but I always seem to do it.
My own thoughts on this are that about the time the strings have settled down, it is almost time to change them anyway.
We play retirement homes or care centers primarily and I don't care how settled your strings are, if you go from outside air temp to the warm, humid air in one of those places, you will be tuning after each song...just the nature of the beast

Seems some brands stretch out quicker than others. I used to use GSP strings all the time, and they were very good at stretching out and holding tune fairly quickly. I often restrung the day of a gig, and while I did have to tune between songs at first, after a few pieces they seemed to settle in pretty well.

But as has been said, nylons are what they are, and more susceptible to temperature, humidity, direct sunlight, etc than are metal strings. It's annoying, but we get used to it.

I get 4 or so days out of my strings while they are staying in tune and not dead.

1 day is enough to wear the strings in, if you stretch them and play them for 4-5 hours.

Hard life!