Dirty Pool Podcast - Ep36 - Pinball Clocks with Philippe Grégoire of Ayscrim Studios
Dirty Pool Podcast - Ep36 - Pinball Clocks with Philippe Grégoire of Ayscrim Studios
▶ Full Dirty Pool Podcast Playlist 🕰️ Ayscrim Studios 🛒 Website 📷 Instagram 📘 Facebook Philippe Grégoire is the owner of Ayscrim Studios, where he hand-builds officially licensed pinball clocks using artwork from classic machines and original collaborations with pinball / adjacent artists. We’ll talk about how a homemade Gottlieb Surf Champ score-reel clock grew into a fully licensed business, the engineering hidden inside each clock, working with original game artwork, and the strange process of building a creative niche inside an already very specific creative niche. Also how to bring these products to market and showing them at conventions to reveal the mystery behind the billion dollar lucrative business of pinball arts and crafts. /s The original clock documented on pinside: We’ll also get into the one-of-a-kind Great Pyramid clock Philippe made for Dirty Pool, complete with a moving eye that watches back. Pretty damn cool. 📡 Twitch 📺 YouTube 📷 Instagram 📘 Facebook 👕 Apparel
Kineticist’s take
Pinball clock maker details product design, licensing strategy, and convention booth operations.
Synopsis
Philippe Grégoire of Ayscrim Studios discusses his journey creating licensed pinball clocks using digitized Gottlieb score reels and Arduino electronics. He shares his path from casual pinball collector to small-scale manufacturer, covering the technical development process, licensing negotiations with Gottlieb, and practical insights on exhibiting at pinball conventions like Pinball Expo. The conversation explores the mindset of niche hobbyists building products within the pinball community and the importance of in-person events for maintaining enthusiasm and generating sales.
Highlights
- Philippe Grégoire legally licensed Gottlieb artwork for his pinball clocks, taking the legitimate licensing route rather than gray-area fan modifications
- His first Pinball Expo booth with the Space Girl clock design sold 20 units within four hours
- D. Gottlieb & Co. score reels cost $400-600 per unit on Marcos, making them impractical for a sustainable product business
- Philippe works in NDT (non-destructive testing) with access to mechanical and electronics engineers who helped develop the clock prototypes
- Booth setup costs at pinball expos range from $250-400 for single vendor tables
- Rob Burke personally called Philippe to convince him to exhibit at Pinball Expo despite his initial hesitation
- Philippe uses a knockoff Pelican case (roughly $150) that fits five clocks for convention travel
- In-person convention events generate significantly higher sales volumes than online/direct sales periods
Entities
- Artovision· company
- Ayscrim Studios· company
- Gottlieb· company
- Pentastic· event
- Pinball Expo· event
- Texas Expo· event
- Surf Champ· game
- Tales from the Crypt· game
- Straight Down the Middle· media
- Brad Albright· person
- Dirtypool Pinball· person
- Ken Head· person
- Philippe Grégoire· person
- Pinball Pimp· person
- Rob Burke· person
- Steuart· person
- Pinside· platform
- Atlantis Clock· product
- Space Girl Clock· product