Someone at the time had a CNC aluminium one on ebay for $700 or so. I thought "I can do that cheaper". I was very wrong. The actual parts weren't too bad.(I still had to spend $1400 on the cameras IIRC), but the number of tools I didn't own was a lot higher than I expected.
Still no regrets, I had a fun week of arts and crafts and got to stick it to Elsevier and other academic publishers :D