Artist's tiny Titanic made from toothpick

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 14 (UPI) -- A San Francisco artist has marked the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking by creating a model of the doomed liner from a single toothpick.

Stephen J. Backman told the Los Angeles Times he believes his replica is the world's smallest Titanic, or at least the smallest one made from a toothpick. The model is 1 5/8 inches from bow to stern -- the original was 882 feet, 6 inches -- but contains significant amounts of detail.

Backman said the first step was to take the toothpick apart.

"I cut it up into paper-thin pieces and then re-glue the toothpick back together," he told the Times in a phone interview Thursday.

Backman, who made his first toothpick sculpture at the age of 5, is something of a specialist in toothpick art, both small and large. He has done replicas of the Eiffel Tower, Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco's Transamerica Pyramid from single toothpicks, and celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate with a 13-foot replica crafted from 30,000 toothpicks.