Illinois Man Hopes Backyard Teeter-Totter Sets Guinness World Record

— -- An Illinois man has built a 123 foot, one inch long teeter-totter in his backyard that he hopes will set a Guinness World Record.

Chuck Uhing, 77, began building the teeter-totter in 2014 using mostly cables and steel pipes, according to his neighbor of 31 years, Norm Deets.

“It took probably a year or just over a year for us to figure out what he was doing,” Deets told ABC News. “He said he was working on a project and we didn’t know exactly what it was, but as he started to assemble it, it became a little more obvious.”

Deets lives nearly a quarter mile away from Uhing in the rural town of Milledgeville, Illinois. He said his neighbor, a retired welder, is “very creative” and is always working on a project. But the teeter-totter would be something special.

“I think he wanted to leave a legacy for his family, for his kids and grandkids and great grandkids,” he said of Uhing, a father of seven. “He wanted relatives to be able to say that back in 2016 he created the world’s largest teeter-totter.”

Uhing could not be reached by ABC News.

The current Guinness World Record for the longest teeter-totter measures 79 feet, two inches, according to the organization’s website.

Deets was on hand last week when an engineer came to measure the teeter-totter. Two local officials, the city clerk and police chief of a nearby town, served as witnesses. The next step is for Uhing to submit the official paperwork to Guinness, which Deets expects his neighbor to do this week.

Nearly 60 people have tested the teeter-totter already, which sends people up to 50 feet in the air at its peak.

Uhing, who is married, told local CBS station WHBF-TV that he could not have built the teeter-totter without the support of his family.

“The biggest thing is they didn't say, 'Dad you're nuts, or you're crazy, you're gonna kill yourself,’” he said. “They just let me do my thing, ya know?"