Scott Weaver used 1000,000 toothpicks, about 30,000 hours and Elmer’s Glue to create a visually stunning 9′ tall masterpiece with five different “ping-pong tours” through the various San Francisco landmarks.
I have used different brands of toothpicks depending on what I am building. I also have many friends and family members that collect toothpicks in their travels for me. For example, some of the trees in Golden Gate Park are made from toothpicks from Kenya, Morocco, Spain, West Germany and Italy. The heart inside the Palace of Fine Arts is made out of toothpicks people threw at our wedding.
This video takes you through all five tours … it is amazing!
My family lived in San Francisco for 3 generations. My great-grandfather had a winery in the 1880’s at Montgomery and Jackson St, about a block from where the Transamerica pyramid is located. My grandparents had a house at 518 12th Ave, between Anza and Balboa. My mom and dad had a house on Quintera, then moved to Marin, where I was born.
I started building toothpick sculptures in 1968, when I was 8 years old. My early structures were abstract and about 2 – 4 feet tall. I built one sculpture that had a ping-pong ball roll through it. In 1974 I started a new sculpture and added the Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard Street, that also had a ping-pong ball roll through it. This is what started what is now Rolling Through the Bay.
Over the years I have worked on Rolling Through the Bay, on-and-off, sometimes not working on it for years at-a-time, to do other projects and get married to my beautiful wife, Rochelle, and have a wonderful son, Tyler.
I love working with toothpicks and hope to do so for years to come.
I can’t even imagine the steady-handedness or the patience required to build something such as this; the detail is exquisite, and I hope to be able to see it in person one day. =)