Number 8 wire is a gauge of wire on the British Standard Wire Gauge that has entered into the cultural lexicon of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

Use for farm fencing

Early farm fences in New Zealand were generally used to protect crops, gardens, and orchards from farm animals, rather than to contain the stock. Fencing methods used were post-and-rail fences, ditch-and-bank fences, stone walls, and hedges, but all proved too expensive to install and maintain to fence entire properties and tended to be unreliable. To prevent stock straying, boundary keepers were employed to patrol boundaries. In the 1850s, heavy annealed iron wire became available for fences, but this wire was very thick and only came in short lengths, was hard to work and to keep taut, and was expensive to use. In England, in 1855,

Henry Bessemer Sir Henry Bessemer (19 January 1813 – 15 March 1898) was an English inventor, whose steel-making process would become the most important technique for making steel in the nineteenth century for almost one hundred years from 1856 to 1950. He ...

patented the

Bessemer process The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace. The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation ...

that led to the mass production of low-cost high-quality steel, leading to the large scale production of affordable lighter gauge steel wire. The introduction of the new steel fencing wire of various gauges in the 1860s allowed the rapid construction of low-cost fencing and was quickly adopted for use on New Zealand sheep farms. Galvanised number 8 steel wire soon became the preferred standard. These new, lightweight steel wire fences were not suitable for cattle, as cattle would lean over or on the fences and damage or push the fences over. When

barbed wire A close-up view of a barbed wire Roll of modern agricultural barbed wire Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. Its primary use is ...

became available in 1879, it was used as the top wire and perhaps a lower additional wire in conjunction with No. 8 wire on fences on dairy and cattle farms to prevent the animals from damaging the fences. This further extended the use of number 8 wire. From the early 1960s, lower cost and lighter weight but more difficult to work high-tensile 12½ gauge (2.5 mm) steel wire has largely replaced number 8 wire for New Zealand fencing. Since 1976, when New Zealand adopted the metric system, number 8 wire is officially referred to as 4.0 mm gauge wire, although the older term "Number 8 wire" continues to be commonly used.

In language and culture

As a consequence of the ubiquitous use of number 8 wire in New Zealand, remote farms often had rolls of number 8 wire on hand, and the wire would often be used inventively and practically to solve mechanical or structural problems other than fencing. Accordingly, the term "number 8 wire" came to represent the ingenuity and resourcefulness of

New Zealanders New Zealanders ( mi, Tāngata Aotearoa), colloquially known as Kiwis (), are people associated with New Zealand, sharing a common history, culture, and language (New Zealand English). People of various ethnicities and national origins are citiz ...

, and the phrase "a number 8 wire mentality" evolved to denote an ability to create or repair machinery using whatever scrap materials are available on hand. New Zealand hardware and DIY store franchise

Mitre 10 Mitre 10 is an Australian retail and trade hardware store chain. Operations are based on a cooperative system, where the store owners are members of the national group and each has voting rights. The chain name references the mitre joint. Th ...

have adopted "Number 8" as their in house brand for generic hardware supplies and tools. The Waikato Museum runs an art award named after the wire.

References

{{Reflist New Zealand culture Wire gauges New Zealand slang Standards of New Zealand

Use for farm fencing

In language and culture

See also

References