Hiya, Foamex, Forex and Palight are all the same material - There is a type two Forex thats a little bit harder but they are all Foamed PVC. If you PM me your location | will find a good cheap supply close to you although a lot of sign makers use it all over the world so getting free or cheap offcuts is pretty easy normally To carve | use a number of home made tools and some brought, | am at present making up a few little sets of tools fora couple of people, but essentially its whats the best for you. Here is my tool roll | made up for carving, the inital set came from the internet and are good quality small chisels. The rest I have collected or made up, B CDE FGH Ij at! : i Came with a single set - found online A: Surface hacking and line pressing tool - 8mm - Used to rough up the surface and for pressing out neat edges and line, can also be used to press brick and stone work in. B: Surface hacking and line pressing tool - 10mm-- Used to rough up the surface and for pressing out neat edges and lines. can also be used to press brick and stone work in C: Surface hacking trenching and line pressing tool - 5mm - Used to rough up the surface, trenching out surface trenches and for pressing out neat edges and lines, can also be used to press brick and stone work in, D: Pressing and edging tool - Smm single face angled - Used to press neat edges and rows, edge off small areas and to press in round window edges etc. E: Comers and rounded stones - Smm single face angle- Used to press comers in on buildings and to face out rounded stone edges. F: Flat edged scribe makes lining against a ruler for wide lines easierG: Corner angle pressing tool: great for finishing round window edges, detailing , roof eave edges and anywhere you have a reversed comer, H: Edging and fine carving tool - 3mm - for fine edging and small detail finishing Separate purchased |: Scalpel for cutting edges, detailing, slicing out sections and cutting original senbe lines ( as the surtace must be broken more than pushed in for deep carving ). J: Tweezers long nose useful to have in the set for small carved part placement. K: Metal tipped marking pencil for metal - and incredibly useful part of the kit and the main tool | use for carving normal stonework. Wax carving / Dental tool set (altered to my own needs ) Spatula - for filling areas and corner gaps. M: Trenching and edging tool - 2mm Rounded top edges, to allow you ‘to mark out and press small details also cut to press 1:43.5 brick verticals N: Carving and pressing tool A- 4mm chisel tip for deep carving and surface working, 0: Carving and Pressing tool 8 - 3mm chisel tip for deep carving and surface working. P: Very fine tipped scribe - for fine detail finishing such as hairline cracks in concrete, splits in bricks ete. Q: Carving and Pressing tool C- 1.5mm chisel tip for deep carving and surface working, | also use 60 grit aluminium oxide paper for impressing grain upon the material, and 120 and 320 grit for sanding surfaces and corners etc. Glue - best thing is super glue. Filler - any car body filler. Paint base coat - a good car body spray undercoat is the best option - | find white is the best color to start on if you are using acrylics.To Carve, First cut out the basic forms for the building sides cut each one to the drawing sizes, and mark out the doors and windows with a pencil and any other details you might need. Impress these into the surface first with the Fine scribe (P). Then rough the surfaces up if you are doing stone work ( Tools A, B, C plus scalpel and anything else to make the surface uneven. ) or carefully mark out with a pencil if doing brick work, Stone, Carve stones deep or shallow into the material using any mix of the tools - | tend to edge in first with a big tool then clean and neaten up with the others. The material is pretty malleable and you can push it into all different forms. dont be afraid to cut out and pull out bits here and there as well. If deep stone work is required it is best to glue two layers of 3mm foamed PVC together and carve these as it will ease the removable of material where you have deep recesses. Lightly sand over stones when complete to round them off with some 120 rit paper. Don't work right to the edge of a wall, always leave about ‘mm where a corner is required .When complete cut and sand each comer edge to 45 degree angle and glue building together using a ‘square to get the comer angle correct then carve the corner stones in fill and sand as needed, Brick Cut each horizontal line with a ruler and a fine point scribe, edging lines and deep mortar courses use tool F and for vertical brick work a tool like M is used (larger is a larger scale ). When complete place a sheet of 60 grit alum oxide paper over and rub the back hard - this will press the bricks in a little surface detail them and make the mortar lines look much better. Make sure you match each corner for bri work so it follows correctly round, | often carve all the walls on the sheet first then cut them out, this makes getting the brick work to follow on perfectly much easier. Conerete Make sure the corners are neat and finished and then fill smooth and sand. When complete place a sheet of 60 grit alum oxide paper over and rub the back hard.Wood You can carve wood detail and it comes out surprisingly well although | generally use real wood. | found that carving an old medieval structure of plaster, brick and wood frames can all be done with a litle thought and a good use of preparing the correct depths before carving Hope this helps , please ask if you have any more questions. Regards Nikki