I made and used wooden ladder stands for decades with no problems. I used pressure treated pine and assembled the ones I made using screws. The ones I built were robust and about 15' to the seat, making them fairly heavy, difficult to drag deep into the woods and tough for one guy to set up becasue of the weight. I secured them to the tree with a ratchet strap. As already mentioned as being a necessary safety issue, I checked each prior to every season. Very seldom found a problem. One thing to look for if you decide to go this route is squirrels/rats cutting the strap. I think they do this to get to the salt from handling. Not sure though. As you can tell all of this is in the past tense. I no longer make wooden stands. I am no longer strong enough to man handle the wooden ladder stands that I made.