Progress update!
Well it worked.
Here's a picture of the home made lathe. As I said before I had some bits in the garage that helped.
As you see I spent a bit of time making a guard for the V belt at the back. The electric 220V motor I'm using is a hand held plaster / cement mixer. It has a two speed gear box that allows you to run up 300 rpm or 650 rpm. I've been running at 300 rpm - as I didn't want to find out if I could burn the plastic rods I've been turning.
Would this design work for wood?
Yes.
Would this design work for plastic?
Yes
Would it work for metal?
Forget it!
Here's a picture of the mixer and an OM617 (what else?) alternator pulley borrowed for the exercise.
And here's a close up of the bolt system I made so that I can adjust the tension on the V belt.
This is only a temporary fixture - I'll probably be changing it a bit when it gets turned into my IP test bench - but for that I'm going to have to get a faster spinning motor...