Tim Sanders has always been a paddle guy, but he wasn’t always The Paddle Guy. His passion for paddling developed at an early age through family float trips and scouting, but the real obsession began with a whitewater trip on North Carolina’s Nantahala River when he was 19.

After a pulled muscle forced an early exit from the MR340 river race in 2012, Sanders decided to try creating a wooden paddle from scratch. With no prior woodworking knowledge, the Columbia, Missouri, resident turned to YouTube, bought five hand tools from the hardware store, and set to work. One year later, his hand-carved paddle with a wood-burned map of the MR340 was finished, and TS Paddles was born.

If you’re looking for a plain wooden paddle, keep looking. While the paddles that Sanders creates are functional, durable, and water-tested, they are much more than that. His creations wouldn’t look out of place next to paintings and sculptures in your home. Art is central to Sanders’ craft, and he thrives on creating intricately detailed and personal pieces for his customers. Through a combination of hand carving, wood burning, stain-painted art, and epoxy, Sanders uses various types of repurposed wood to craft custom paddles that each tell a story.

“My favorite type of paddle to create is whatever the craziest thing is that I can make,” Sanders says. 

Labor times range from 60 to 100 hours or more, depending on the paddle style. His most labor-intensive and elaborate piece is “Francesca,” a flamingo paddle with hand-chiseled feathers and an 11-layer epoxy paddle stand that took 540 hours.

Tim Sanders of TS Paddles. (Neima Shahdadi)

When he’s not designing something new in his basement office or wood-burning the details onto an existing piece in his one-car garage/workshop, Sanders works as an accounting professional for the University of Missouri. Somewhat surprisingly, there are similarities between his profession and his craft.

“The math and equations very much come into play when it comes to the woodworking side of things, making sure of precise measurements and degree cuts,” Sanders says. “If I’m doing a giant puzzle of all these different types of wood and trying to make a certain pattern or design, I have to crunch numbers at times and do some design layout. I like solving problems and making sure that every single paddle is a unique piece.”

These days, with more than a decade of self-taught woodworking and 70 handcrafted paddles under his belt, Sanders is known around Columbia as The Paddle Guy. No longer focused on competing in the MR340, Sanders is now a sponsor. Each year, he creates and donates a custom race-themed paddle to be raffled off, with proceeds benefiting the race’s organizer, Missouri River Relief.

Interested in your own custom paddle from TS Paddles? Visit tspaddles.com or @tspaddles on Instagram for more information.

Author: Neima Shahdadi is a contributor to Terrain.

Top image: A few pieces by TS Paddles — including “Francesca” on the far right. (Neima Shahdadi)