Our Mission


Our Mission

Cabarrus Time Savers is a non-profit organization that has set out to identify and restore important public time pieces in our community. We consider tower and street clocks to be an important part of our history, in Cabarrus County. For many decades, people planned their day to day lives around clocks in the public eye. We are dedicated to preserving, repairing, and restoring these clocks.

The purpose of this blog is to bring you history of our local horology, news of our current projects, and provide a means to communicate with the community when we need help with historical facts and locating clocks and missing parts for these clocks.

If you would like to donate to our restoration funds or have questions about fund raising, please contact us at: cabtimesavers@yahoo.com

If there is a clock in our community that you feel is important or that may even be missing, please reach out to us.


Thank you!
Scott Schmeiser

NOTE: The pictures on this site, unless otherwise stated, are the property of Cabarrus Time Savers and are not to be reused without written permission from Cabarrus Time Savers.


Friday, October 26, 2018

Tower Clocks Around North Carolina - PBS/UNC TV

Thank you to PBS and UNC TV for broadcasting a show that included the care-taking of some beautiful tower clock installations around North Carolina.  These examples are exactly why Cabarrus Time Savers exists.  Click the link below.

Enjoy!

Clocks, Ferry Rides, and Parades - UNC TV



Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Dial Construction Begins for the Courthouse

Phil Wright has started construction on our new dials for the Historic Cabarrus Courthouse project.  These will be correct in design for the Seth Thomas Company and era correct for pictures that were shown in the 1930's.  It was recorded that the lighter face colors (only pictures are in black and white) were done in the late 1800's for better visibility.  The new dials will be back-lit, as updated in the 1970's so the clock can be visible after dark.  Back-lit dials were available in 1876 when the courthouse was constructed, however wood dials were installed instead.  Ultimately visibility always proved to be an issue, especially only being 34-inches in diameter.

Stay-tuned for more updates!

Laying out the guide lines


Phil uses a mock-up hand (Seth Thomas style) to assist with the layout


Once the hand design was finalized and scaled correctly to the dial size, cutting the new hands could start


Each hand is detailed by hand to be correct in geometry


The stack of hands ready for primer


First layer of primer complete


The paint process will continue and further work to construct numerals will be next.  Cabarrus Time Savers will be assisting with the numeral construction.

Below is a similar style of dial assembly that is being used as a guide for this project.  Also a Seth Thomas installation.


Paint Recovery Updates

The past few months have been dirty, but exciting.  Much of the original paint has now been exposed on the bottom portion of the support cha...