The kit cannon are seven parts,two for the barrel,two fror the carriage sides,two wheel and axle parts and one base.. The scratchbuilt ones have 18 parts. I tried casting the cannon from molds made from the originals. However the small amounts of materials involved made the process too inconsistent. If I had a digital scale it'd probably be easier to get that consitancy.Also I don't have a vacumm to debubble the rubber before pouring the mold so I lose a lot of detail. I found I could carve the little buggers in the time it took for the molds to set. The epoxy sets quickly enough but the couple of barrels I got were pretty poor.I also had trouble with the epoxy filling the mold. I tried venting everthing but still wasn't filling the mold. I'm gonna fool around with a drill to see if I can make a little lathe to turn small cannon. The carriages are fairly easy to make,specially while football or the debates are on.