: We have found in our family the our father's generation (WW II) felt they
: could fix anything with baling wire . . .

For the 97.7 percent of you that were deprived of growing up on a farm ... bailing wire was steel wire of about 14 gauge that came in 10' lengths and was used in bailing hay and staw (for cattle fodder and bedding). The wire had a preformed eye at one end and was plain at the other. The pre-WWII bailing machines that used this wire produced large "square" (actually rectangular box shaped) bails. As the cut and packed hay was extruded from the machine one man would push the plain end of wire through the hay to another on the opposite side. The second guy would take a bend in the wire and send it back. The first guy would run the plain end through the eye end and twist it up. Two wires per bail. Labor was cheap during the '30's. My dad told me these bails weighed about 250 pounds when green.

After the war bailing wire was replaced by jute twine and today by synthetics. Today, most hay is made up into one ton "round" (cylinder shaped) bails. But I've noticed in my recent travels through rural America that large square bails are making a comeback. No bailing wire though, and I'm still trying to trying to figure out a way to use that cheap synthetic twine in boatbuilding.