Originally Posted by
cxwrench
Housing compression, ferrules seating fully, shifter end of the cable seating fully.
Have you never reused cable housing with a new inner cable? Have you never used old inner cable with new housing? I’ve done both. With the former, the cable tension will have to be adjusted. With the latter, the cable tension seldom requires adjustment.
I KNOW guitar strings stretch, but they're made differently and thinner gauge.
Yes, they are single strand. As a single stand they are going to stretch in only one direction. A wire rope…aka cable…is a series of single strand wires coiled in a helix. The coils are more like springs than a straight stand of wire. Put a pulling force on a spring and it straightens out and elongates in the process. The links I’ve provided even talk about how the diameter of the cable decrease under load due to construction stretch.
So over 3' we're talking virtually negligible differences in length.
For elastic stretch as I already detailed. I also detailed construction stretch based on values from Bethlehem Elevator Rope which you ignored.