Product Review: The String Stretcha™

For years I stretched my guitar strings just like everyone else: by hand. As much as I hated stretching guitar strings this way, I never questioned it because that’s how we all did it–there really was no alternative. And like most things guitar-related, everyone had their own way of stretching guitar strings and all argued that theirs was the right way.

I eventually settled on MY way, which I call the “bottle opener stretch” (shown below), and this method served me well for many years. You see a demonstration of this in my article: How to Stretch Guitar Strings.

It seemed to be the best method of all those I’d tried over the years. Regardless, stretching guitar strings was still somewhat imperfect and just kind of a pain in the ass:

• It was a little painful on the fingers
• It took too long–I recon an extra 5-10 minutes to stretch all strings, what with retuning and all
• Even after stretching, some of my strings would continue to go a little flat for a few hours while I played, requiring me to constantly retune

Then, one fateful day some years ago I encountered a guitar tech quickly zipping a little black device up and down a fresh set of strings he’d just installed. When I asked him about it, he introduced me to “The String Stretcha.” When he said the word “stretcha” I thought he was trying to be cool with some kind of street slang or something, but that’s actually what the device is called: “The Stretcha.”

I did a little homework, watched a few demo videos online, and thought it looked pretty cool. I was mainly impressed with the company’s claims of how quickly you could “properly and thoroughly” stretch all your guitar strings and actually be done with it–not have to continue retuning as was usually the case with stretching guitar strings by hand. That, combined with the guitar tech’s testimonial, convinced me to buy one and give it a try.

You can learn more on the String Stretcha Website or at Amazon.com.

It’s probably easier to show you how The String Stretcha works than to try and describe it, so I’ll do both. It essentially applies a similar kind of “bottle opener” pressure that I’d been doing with my hands all those years. The big difference is that it slides this pressure evenly up and down the string, unlike using your fingers to make dozens of of little twists all along the string.

First, you seat your string between two grooved contact points on The String Stretcha, as shown below.

Once the string is seated in the two contact points of the Stretcha, move it as close to the bridge as possible. This’ll be your starting point. Then, lift slightly and angle your hand back a bit (like pulling a lever). Slide The String Stretcha all the way down the string toward the nut, and then all the way back to the bridge.

Once you get back to the bridge, remove the Stretcha from the string and tune it back up to pitch. Now run the Stretcha back up and down the string one more time. Tune, and you’re done. Move onto the next string. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Lastly, here’s a video demo from the manufacturer’s website: