In my younger days (16) I made my own climber. It was steel, but very small, so it didn't weight that much. I didn't use chain or cable, but the old standby steel "V". I had never used a real treestand, so I did not realize that it was imperative to connect both top and bottom pieces with a rope. Well, I was up in the tree and the bottom section decided to fall all of the way to the ground. So I waited until dark and my friend realized that I had not come back out of the woods. He found me and shimmied up the tree to pass me a rope with which I pulled the bottom section back up. It was lesson learned and I spent $200 on a nice light alumminum API stand. Trust me, this is your life, spend the money and do it right!