Hi'all, I needed a bunch of soft wood discs whose dimensions doubly did 
not match my hole saw,so a make-do lathe was called in order. The centre 
whole had to stay below 4mm and none of my cheap hole saw OD was close 
enough to what I needed, that centre bit was 6mm anyway.

It's a wreck of a battery powered drill mounted onto a wooden board 
scrap by means of an angle plate. Power comes temporarily from a random 
IT PSU off the junkbox with 12V being below the nominal 18V of this 
Mabuchi RS-550 "engine", but it did the trick.

I clamped a section of fence post angle iron together with the drive in 
my vise so I had a tool rest for the chisel.

It wobbled way to few rpms and the M4 threaded rod was plenty weak for 
having no tailstock supporting the far end but with adequate care, some 
curses and prayers the job went fine.

uhm'kay
same exact result can be had with a drill mounted
in a horizontal drill holder as depicted.
those are usually meant for wirewheels or grindingstones alright.
But I used mine and my ac drill to cut rod
round or chamfere rod ends etc..
(protruding end supported in a bearing.. reduces the wobble ;))

And while I think every one of us did some rudimentary turning in a 
drill chuck at least once or twice..
I wouldn't want to go as far to call that even a make-shift lathe.

Since it got the job done, kudos to you sir;
but calling it a share worthy make-shift lathe is kind of a stretch 
IYAM.

just sayin'

'sid