He Has a Big Time Building 8-Foot Grandfather Clocks

It could be said that Eugene Glascock is a man with time on his hands.

His most recent masterpiece stands eight feet tall, an ornate grandfather clock that is the fruit of three years of labor. It is the sixth full-sized clock to be built by Glascock, who lives in the eastern part of this Kentucky town.

“I made every piece of it,” Glascock says. One look at his small workshop--filled with lathes, drills and other power tools--dispels any doubt that he did.

The design of the timepiece is his own, as are some of the tools he created to produce its intricate woodworking. Glascock, who is 76, had been collecting tools for 25 years before he retired.

“I got to messing around with woodworking before I retired, and then I got interested in building clocks,” he said.

The works--the gears, hands and movement--were bought, but the other parts, such as the brass hinges and the distinctive columns, he made himself.

In fact, the hardest part about building this clock was executing the design, he said. He first made a full-scale drawing showing the thickness of the cuts, then he built the clock from the blueprint. The clock frame is made of solid wild cherry wood salvaged from a tobacco barn. “I have built some from kits, but it is as hard to build from kits as it is from scratch,” he says.

Most of the other grandfather clocks he has built have gone to friends and family members, but Glascock is keeping this one for himself. It’s going in his living room.