In 1977, Scott Weaver decided to replicate the Golden Gate Bridge with toothpicks and Elmer’s glue. When the 17-year-old finished that structure, he just kept going. What started as a pastime became an all-consuming quest to, as he puts it, “blow people’s minds” with toothpicks. Mission accomplished.

The Rohnert Park, California, resident, a surfer and competitive freestyle Frisbee player — who also likes to transform his house into a castle for Christmas — has poured 3,000 hours into his 9-foot-tall, 20-pound simulacrum of San Francisco. Ripley’s Believe It or Not offered Weaver $40,000 for his 100,000-toothpick town, but he turned it down without hesitation. “Other than my wife and my son, this is the most important thing in my life,” he says. “I just regret that my mother wasn’t able to see it while she was alive.”

Click on the thumbnails below for a guided tour of Weaver’s creation.

Scott Weaver toiled for 3,000 hours and brandished some 100,000 toothpicks to build a 9-foot-tall, 20-pound simulacrum of San Francisco. Ouch!

Video: Wired.com Video Team

Cable Car with the “Rice-A-Roni” logo on it. The logo is the only item in the sculpture that is not a toothpick.

Photo: Anna Goldwater Alexander

San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Photo: Anna Goldwater Alexander

The old de Young Museum.

Photo: Anna Goldwater Alexander

This is the terminus of one of the Ping Pong ball ramps that wend their way through the sculpture. Drop a Ping Pong ball in the top, and it’ll roll past the Maritime Museum in Aquatic Park before landing in Fleishhacker Pool near Ghirardelli Square.

Photo: Anna Goldwater Alexander

A surfer at Ocean Beach.

Photo: Anna Goldwater Alexander

The old Playland Fun House, which was located near Ocean Beach and Cliffhouse. It had a cameo in the Orson Welles film Lady From Shanghai .

Photo: Anna Goldwater Alexander

A Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train car erupts from the artwork.

Photo: Anna Goldwater Alexander

The Palace of Fine Arts, with a special basket attached to hold glue for Weaver’s future creations.

Photo: Anna Goldwater Alexander

Detail of the heart inside the Palace of Fine Arts. This heart is here in honor of Tony Bennett’s signature song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco“, and was made out of toothpicks that were thrown at Weaver and his wife Rochelle at their 1989 wedding. (Yes, guests threw toothpicks instead of rice.)

Photo: Anna Goldwater Alexander