It would be easier to turn a wood on a metal lathe than you would trying to fashion a woodturning lathe into a metal lathe.
Most woodturning lathes are not built with the same same heft, I mean the bed is not heavy enough to support the stresses of metal turning. Never mind that you'd have to find a carriage, lead screw, tool post, etc. and somehow try to fit that to your woodturning lathe.
Metal lathes are in ready supply used. And for reasonable prices. This savings is a by product of all of our manufacturing jobs going overseas, but it comes as benefit to you. You can get a metal lathe, say, a hobbyist one, for a couple hundred dollars if you shop around. You'd probably spend a couple thousand dollars trying to turn your wood late into a metal lathe and it still wouldn't be very good as a metal lathe.
