Old Pinball Parts as Decor: Playfields, Backglasses and Coin Doors on the Wall

Not every pinball machine can be saved. Some arrive with a rotted cabinet, a playfield sanded through to bare wood, or a parts list so long that the sensible thing is to admit defeat and keep the good bits.

And some parts simply outlive their machine. A spare backglass. A speaker panel from a game that got parted out. A set of legs left over from a restoration. These are beautiful objects — hand-drawn artwork, screen-printed in eight colours, designed to be looked at across a noisy room — and they deserve better than a shelf in the garage.

Here is what to do with them, and how to do it without wrecking either the part or your wall.

First, the awkward question

Before you cut anything up: is the machine actually beyond saving?

A playfield in decent condition for a sought-after title is worth considerably more to someone restoring that game than it is as art. The same goes for a backglass, which is often the single hardest part of a machine to replace. If you are holding parts from a short-run or collectable title, it is worth ten minutes on the Internet Pinball Database and a post on a forum before you reach for the drill.

What makes ideal decor is the stuff nobody is fighting over: a common title, a playfield with wear through the artwork, a cracked plastic set, a cabinet too far gone to rebuild. And bear in mind that "unsaveable" often means "the electronics are dead", which is usually the most fixable part of all — our guide on repairing versus replacing a circuit board is the honest version of that conversation.

The playfield: the centrepiece

A playfield on a wall is the single most impressive thing you can do with a dead machine. It is big — anywhere from roughly 16½ × 41½ inches to 27 × 51¾ inches depending on the manufacturer and era — and it carries the game's whole visual identity.

Two schools of thought on preparation. Strip it and you get a flat, graphic, poster-like object where the artwork does the talking. Leave it populated and you keep the ramps, targets and pop bumpers, which is far more three-dimensional and far more obviously a pinball machine — but it also means the wall is carrying every one of those mechanisms.

Either way, frame it. A simple black timber surround stiffens the panel, protects the edges, and stops it reading as salvage. One studio that does this commercially frames to roughly 24 × 44 inches at about 30 lb (14 kg) and specifies heavy-duty wall anchors rated to 100 lb — a useful benchmark, and a reminder that this is a two-fixing job into studs or masonry, never a picture hook into plasterboard.

A few practicalities the enthusiasm tends to skip:

• Weigh yours. A stripped playfield is a comfortable one-person carry. A fully populated one, with mechanisms and wiring still hanging off the back, is a different object entirely.
• Keep it off the sun. Screen-printed playfield inks fade, and a south-facing wall will bleach a playfield in a couple of summers. This is the most common way people ruin a piece they were proud of.
• Do not seal a worn playfield "to protect it". Clearcoating is a restoration skill with real chemistry behind it, and a spray can over forty-year-old ink can lift, craze or dissolve the artwork. If it is going on a wall in a dry room, it does not need sealing.
• Mind the back. If you leave the mechanisms on, the frame needs enough depth that nothing presses against the wall.

Light it, and it stops being a flat object

This is the part that turns a nice piece of salvage into something people ask about.

A pinball playfield has dozens of translucent plastic inserts set into the wood — the arrows, the numbers, the bonus ladders — and every one of them is a window designed to be lit from underneath. Light them and the playfield does on your wall exactly what it did in the machine: it glows, the artwork gains depth, and in a dim room it becomes the light source rather than something you shine a lamp at.

Three ways to do it, in ascending order of effort:

1. A purpose-made kit. These exist and they are cheap. The Pinball Scientist's playfield illumination kit lights up to fifty inserts from one strand with screw-on caps, no soldering, around $40. If you want the effect and not the project, start here.
2. An LED strip behind the panel. Mount a diffused strip in the frame cavity so it washes the back of the playfield. Less precise than per-insert lighting, but almost no work.
3. Re-use the original sockets. If the playfield still has its lamp sockets and wiring loom, you can drive them from a low-voltage supply. This is the purist's answer and it looks the best — but it is a wiring job, and see the safety note below.

If you are choosing LEDs and want to understand colour temperature, brightness and why some LEDs look wrong in a machine, our complete LED lighting guide and the honest LED versus fluorescent comparison cover the same ground for a working machine, and the reasoning carries over.

The one lighting product we do make is for a machine rather than a wall: a LED replacement for the Gottlieb System 80B backbox fluorescent tube. If your project is a working machine with a dead backbox tube rather than a wall hanging, that is the one — and the backbox light diagnostic tells you whether the tube is really the problem.

Backglasses and translites

The backglass is the best-looking object in the whole machine and the most fragile thing you will handle.

The artwork is painted on the inside of the glass, in reverse, layer by layer. That means it is protected from your side and completely exposed on the other — and after forty years the ink loses its grip on the glass and starts to flake. Once flaking begins it is progressive and effectively irreversible.

So: keep a backglass out of direct sunlight, keep it away from heat, and if you light it, light it gently and from a distance. A hot lamp close behind a flaking area accelerates the damage. LEDs help here simply because they run cool.

Support the whole bottom edge rather than clamping the corners, hang it where nothing will knock it, and if it is already flaking, get advice before you apply anything at all — the community has strong and well-tested opinions about what preserves a backglass and what destroys one, and this is not the place to improvise.

Translites — the printed plastic sheets that replaced painted glass on later machines — are far more forgiving. They do not flake, they weigh nothing, they can be trimmed, and a cheap one makes a fine first project. If you are nervous, start with a translite.

Speaker panels, coin doors and the small stuff

Speaker panels are underrated. They are already a finished graphic panel with cut-outs, they are light, and they hang like a picture. On many machines the panel art is as good as the backglass.

Coin doors are heavy, industrial and full of character — the coin returns, the little window, the worn paint around the slot. Mounted on a wall or set into the front of a home bar, a coin door does more for a room's atmosphere than almost anything else, and nobody is restoring a machine around a coin door.

Plastics and ramps are the offcuts of the hobby. Playfield plastics make coasters, mobiles and framed sets. A clear plastic ramp with an LED strip inside it is a genuinely lovely object and costs nothing, because a cracked ramp has no other value.

Score displays, if you can drive them, make wonderful clocks and counters — though note that the original gas-discharge displays need high voltage and are best left to someone who knows what that means.

Legs, cabinets and furniture

Pinball legs are chromed steel, they bolt to a plate, and they are exactly the right height for a table — around 73 cm. A thick top, four legs and a set of levellers makes a side table that looks deliberate rather than improvised. Second-hand legs are cheap and plentiful because most restorations replace them.

A cabinet that is structurally sound but cosmetically gone can become a home bar, a shelving unit, or a cocktail cabinet — it is a well-built plywood box with decent joinery. Cut it down and you keep the side art; leave it whole and you keep the shape everyone recognises.

If a game room is where all this is heading, our ten basement bar essentials covers the room around the objects — lighting, seating, acoustics and the mistakes people make with all three.

Two rules about wiring

Almost everything above is low-voltage and harmless. Two things are not.

First, never wire salvaged pinball parts to mains voltage. Use an off-the-shelf LED driver or a sealed low-voltage supply. The original transformers, fluorescent ballasts and high-voltage display circuits in a pinball machine belong in a pinball machine, not in a picture frame, and a forty-year-old mains component behind combustible plywood on your wall is not a risk worth taking.

Second, keep the supply accessible. Do not seal a power supply inside a sealed frame. Things fail, and you want to be able to unplug and open it without dismantling the piece.

FAQ

How do you hang a pinball playfield on a wall?

Frame it to stiffen and protect the edges, then fix into studs or masonry using at least two heavy-duty anchors — a framed playfield runs around 30 lb (14 kg) stripped, and considerably more with its mechanisms still fitted. Never use plasterboard picture hooks.

Can you light up a pinball playfield hung as art?

Yes, and it is what makes the piece. The translucent inserts are designed to be lit from behind. Ready-made illumination kits light around fifty inserts with no soldering for roughly $40; alternatively an LED strip in the frame cavity washes the back of the panel.

Will sunlight damage a pinball playfield or backglass?

Yes. Playfield inks fade in direct sun, and a backglass will both fade and flake. Hang either away from direct sunlight, and keep heat sources — including hot lamps — well clear of a backglass.

Should I clearcoat a worn playfield before hanging it?

Generally no. Clearcoating is a restoration skill, and the wrong product over old ink can lift or craze the artwork. On a wall, in a dry room, an unsealed playfield is fine.

Are pinball legs the right height for a table?

Yes — they are chromed steel, bolt to a mounting plate, and stand at around 73 cm, which is normal table height. With levellers fitted they sit flat on an uneven floor. Used legs are cheap because restorations routinely replace them.

Is it wrong to cut up an old pinball machine for parts?

It depends entirely on the machine. A common title with a worn playfield and a rotted cabinet is a fair candidate. A rare or short-run title is worth more to a restorer than to your wall — check the Internet Pinball Database and ask a forum before committing.

Sources & further reading

• Internet Pinball Database — identify a title, its year and its production run
• The Pinball Scientist — playfield illumination kit for wall hanging
• Tiltcycle — framed and lit playfield art (source of the 24×44 in / 30 lb / 100 lb anchor figures)
• Pinball Makers wiki — playfield dimensions across manufacturers
• Mr. Pinball repair tip archive — backglass preservation and storage
• Pinside — playfield wall hanging tips