Actually you can turn metal, especialy bronze and softer metals but even steel, even on my Mini jet. Obviously you can't turn the sizes of wood that can be turned on the same lathe, but small sized pieces can be.
Believe me, your HSS tools can cut steel (they are much stronger than it - I found out by accidentally cutting my Talon chuck :-( ), and your lathe is strong enough to turn it. Obviously there are more security hazards, and doing metal free-form (as most wood lathes don't have a slide rest) can be very hard - but doable. Also recomended is cutting fluid (to cool the metal down). But I'm far from an expert on this subject, so I won't recommend anything to you.
BTW metal spining does sound cool - I ordered Paul Wiley's book, and will attempt it one day. From what I understand, it is also possible on wood lathes, but again I'm no expert or even beginer on this one.