No 8 wire

New Zealand term for "we used our ingenuity to fix it".

(The origin of this expression could be found on New Zealand sheep and dairy farms when farmers used to build and repair their own fences using No 8 gauge wire. They had so much of this wire they used it to fix almost anything. Cars, tractors, haybailers, etc. - anything that still worked was often held together with this No 8 wire.

Now days everything in NZ is measured in the metric SI system - the same wire measures at 3.26 mm! Who's going to say "use some 3.26....", however the expression has stuck with the older generations in New Zealand).

Nobody knew how to fix the washing machine. In the end Tom used some No 8 wire. That fixed it.

When I get stuck on a problem I always say to use a bit of No 8 wire.