I have recently found myself making large numbers of Adobe style buildings from scratch. I found that 28min adobe buildings and churches which are commercially available can require an actual mortgage to buy. There are certainly plenty of them to go around. However, when a specific building or structure is required, they fall short. I found myself in this situation as I began to build the terrain for my Monterrey scenario. I needed the Bishop's Palace for my game, and no one made it in any scale. I was faced with having one built at the cost of a couple of hundred US Dollars, UNPAINTED! Before I succumbed to this purchase, I thought I would try my hand at making it myself. I have written in the past about the Hot Wire Foam Factory which I purchased a few years ago for around $ 170.00. 1 elected to use foam as my building material. I began with a visit to Home Depot to buy some good old 2" white foam boards. Total cost, $ 8.95. 1 set up the foam factory and cut two pieces of the foam in perfect rectangles. I than used the scribing tool to cut the desired facing and door slots. Using the same tool, I created cracks and several areas on the building where the adobe had crumbled away, exposing the underlying brick work, which I also created with this tool. I also used a shaped hot wire device called a Tippi hand tool to cut out the top floor and make it appear as though it had collapsed inward. The real Bishop's palace at Monterrey had fallen into ruin years before the battle in this manner. After cutting all the necessary pieces, I glued them together with Elmer's yellow carpenters glue. Don't try to substitute white glue here as it will take five days to dry under the foam. Carpenters glue dries in a hour or so if you leave it in the sun. The next step is the most critical in changing the appearance of the foam. Using Woodland Scenics roadbed powder available at any railroad hobby store, I created my own stucco. I carefuly applied this by hand to the entire suface of the building save for the previously mentioned exposed brick areas. Once dry the buildings were fitted out with doors made from tongue deppressors and painted with water-based hobby paint. I also created many other stucco buildings in the same weekend. Total time invested was about 12 hours for 7 stucco buildings. Total cost was less than $ 15.00. The building in the picture at right from Snapdragon studios was $ 35.00 unpainted. Also, it arrived in 8 pieces in the mail. The foam buildings are light, durable and accept paint very well. I recommend this method and welcome any questions on the acquisition of the necessary tools. Back to Rebel Yell No. 20 Table of Contents Back to Rebel Yell List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by HMGS South This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com