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Roto-Dial Clocks |
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Roto-Dial was based in Wichita, Kansas. Their clocks were unique in style and design. They had aluminum bodies, and rumor has it that they took over an aircraft plant after WWII, and used the aluminum already in the plant to make the clock bodies. The only reasoning we can derive for "Sand Dial" as a name is that some of the clocks had colored beads (sand) on the inside of the glass that provided a different look.
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Here's the prototypical "Sand Dial" clock by Roto-Dial. The structure of these clocks is unusual, with an aluminum plate with diamonds cut-outs, over a neon ring. The glass bezel over the front of the clock has the little beads that give the gold, green, blue, and red colors. Most of these clocks had a metal face. | ||
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This is a restored one (see the Restoration page), so it's not original. Note that this clock has a plastic face, rather than a metal face, with the ring of neon behind the plastic. Last I checked, this clock was hanging in a diner on old Route 66. | ||
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We THINK this is a Roto-Dial. We could never get our hands on this one to be sure, but it has some of the same styling (body structure, highly exposed external ring of neon, number scheme) as some other Sand Dials we've seen. This also was on a remote part of old Route 66. | ||
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This is another style of Roto-Dial, with a marquee added. It appears to be the same general structure as the rather plain one above. The glass has the sand beads in a triangle shape extending over the inner neon ring. | ||
| Click here to go to the gallery of other Roto-Dial clock photos, and some photos showing structural details of the clocks. | |||
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