Meet The Maker: Paul ‘Burf’ Burford of BTR Bikes

Paul ‘Burf’ Burford is a maker through and through. As you’ll see if you follow his Instagram feed, if something breaks, his response is rarely ‘Where do I buy a new one?’, but instead ‘How can I fix this?’. You’ll also clock him on Dad duties, with school runs by bike, and kids in the workshop. Any parent will appreciate the effort that goes into the daily juggle of lunch boxes and welding torches.

With BTR bikes, he’s made some highly sought after hardtails, as well as the very impressive Gasser steel downhill bike. Check out this interview with him about his new project Rat Bikes, and be sure to check out his online shop, where you’ll find trail building tools, and a few bits of merch besides. I caught him for a quiet moment at Bespoked Manchester to find out more about what drives him to keep making, mending, and building.

How did you become a maker of things?

Oh my goodness, I think it’s just in my blood, I was destined to be a maker of things. I can remember at school every morning the teacher would stand us in a semicircle in class and then fire out mental arithmetic questions at us. If you got it right, you moved up the semicircle. If you got it wrong, you moved down. And I was always in the bottom three.

But when it came to like making stuff, like the arts and crafts projects and stuff, I was always like the best one. I’d always finish mine first and it was always the neatest and stuff. So yeah, I think I was just always destined to be a maker of stuff.

I love bikes and I love making stuff. So why not make bikes?

And what has been the trickiest skill to learn? Because you have many skills!

I don’t know really. There are so many different things and it all ties together. Like TIG welding – it’s really difficult to become proficient at. It takes lots and lots and lots of time to do it. But then suspension design – you need to know all kinds of different mathematics and how other things interact with each other. Tube bending, as you’ve seen over the last few weeks on Instagram, is an absolute mind f*ck.

I don’t know really which is the hardest one to learn… CNC machining was also like a pretty technical one. I guess CNC, you just need to know the numbers and know which toolpaths to use and stuff like that. And then it’s fine.

There’s more science to CNC, whereas TIG is a lot more art. There’s more feel than science with TIG welding. Same with tube bending, more feel than science. So I don’t know really. I don’t know how I would pin down what specifically was the hardest thing.

It’s all been hard!

If you’re passionate about it and you want to do it, you just do it. It’s not like, ‘Oh, this is really hard. This sucks’. If you want to do it, you make it happen.

What’s your favourite tool and why?

Oh my goodness. I would probably say the angle grinder just because it’s so versatile. You can do so many different things with an angle grinder. There are so many different attachments and you can do so many different things with it. You can tube notch with it. You can cut tubes with it. You can get you out of any kind of trouble with it. You can make your welds look pretty with it.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I wake up in the morning, do the school run with the kids. If the weather’s good, we go on the tag along. So I take my daughter on the tag along and my son on the monkey seat on the top tube. Get to the workshop around about nine o’clock-ish. And then probably scroll social media for a little bit while I try and buck my ideas up to get going. And then, it kind of depends.

Sometimes there’s CNC machine stuff to do. Sometimes there’s frame building stuff to do. Sometimes there’s days of admin to get done.

What’s your favourite part of the process and why?

When I was building up this blue Gasser frame and I got that back from paint – putting it all together, seeing the finished result and knowing that I did all of that, it was a really good feeling. I think it’s creating something that you know someone is going to have that much fun using. There’s not that many things that you can sell that can give someone that feeling.

That feeling that you get at the bottom of a mountain bike ride, that stoke that was like, ‘Oh my God, that was amazing, that was so much fun!’. Where else do you get that? Being able to produce something that will give someone that feeling is just incredible.

How long does it take to make a typical bike? You’ve got some extremes here, so talk us through that.

That depends massively on the type of bike. You could do a track bike where it’s literally just the frame, there’s no braze-ons, no cable guides. You can build one of those in a day probably.

Something like the Gasser, you’re looking at like four to five weeks with all the machining and all the little bits and all that kind of stuff. A Dad Rat, I haven’t built it in five hours yet, but that’s what it needs to be built in for it to be viable. So, it depends massively on the product, on the type of frame and what it’s got on it.

How about a trail tool or a tough rake?

I do those in batches of 50 or 100. They take about a week or so with all the processing and all that kind of stuff.

They come in as a flat laser cut plate and then one edge has got a sharp edge cut on it. That needs to go into a milling machine so I can then cut that chamfered edge on it. And there’s two of those, so there’s two processes.

Then where the tube collar gets welded onto the plate, you need to remove the mill scale from there, otherwise you don’t get a strong join between the two pieces. And then the tube needs two holes for the screws to go in. So there are quite a few hours in the overall batch.

I guess to make just one, if I just did one on its own, maybe an hour or two.

What’s the hardest part of being a maker?

Probably not having enough money. Yeah, just the stress of that. It’s like being self-employed. It’s feast or famine. You never know when the money’s coming in. Sometimes you’ve got loads in and you think, ‘Oh, I’m doing well, all right’.

And then it takes a few weeks for the next lot to come in and then you’re not doing as right as you thought you were.

Like, getting ready for Bespoked, it’s just me in the workshop. There’s a ton of stuff that needs to be done and there’s not enough hours in the day to get it done. So you just stay up all night to get it done. And that wears on your family, wears on your own health, but you just can’t help it. You love it too much. You just have to do it.

What’s the best part of being a maker?

Just making stuff. Like I said already, I just love making stuff. It doesn’t have to be a bike. It can be literally anything. I just like creating something. It’s really good for the soul. Creating rather than destroying.

And, the freedom that running my own business allows me. If the kids are ill one day, I can just be like, ‘Oh, I’m not going to go in today. I need to look after the kids’. That kind of thing is pretty great. Not running a retail shop or something where I have to be there for the customers to come in. I can not be there during the day, or I can go in in the evenings and catch up. I like that side of it.

Is there another maker that you particularly admire?

Yeah, there’s quite a few actually. Ted James, obviously. Everyone loves Ted.

Konstantin from Drust. He does some really, really nice stuff as well. I really like how honest and blunt he is as well. There’s no bullsh*t with Konstantin.

Sturdy bikes as well. The innovation with the 3D printing and the design that goes into those frames is just absolutely mind-blowing.

Clandestine. I really like the style of his bikes as well. Kind of utilitarian, no fuss. Just really good solid bikes.