If you had $600 to start a home workshop...

[linker48x]

I've been dong this for a long, long time, and I started out poor and so I had to start cheap.  My main advice, having looked at the long lists above,---First things first.  You are going to be taking things apart, and putting them back together, so hand tools that you can use to do that, are the only priority, before you buy anything else.   Since I work on Japanese and Euro, English, and American stuff, for myself I would say both metric and American wrenches, but tailor it to what you are going to work on first.  Look all over the motorcycle you will be working on, and get what you will need.  If you are going to work on other bikes later, you might just shop now for end wrenches 4 or 6mm up to 19mm and 1/4 to 3/4-- and sockets the same normal reach, and start with a 3/8 ratchet, but you will eventually want 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2 ratchets and deep sockets and various ratchet extensions too--whatever you can afford, 3/8 if nothing else, and be sure to get a plug wrench or socket that fits the plug in the bike you will work on (note height above the plug, as well as diameter, if the wrench won't fit in between the tank and the plug, it is not going to be useful. You'll need to take the wheels out, so be sure you have that covered both front and rear--get a 12 inch crescent or a couple end wrenches or 1/2 drive sockets to fit.  slot and Phillips screw drivers, and a J phillips, and maybe a Vessel impact driver.  Battery pliers, slip joint, diagonal cutters, needle nose--among 1000 other things, that will help you take the chain apart. Ball peen hammer, dead blow hammer.  An electric hand drill to run a wire brush, buffer, etc. as well as drill holes.  A hacksaw. Other useful things you might not think of, like a couple files (incuding a mill bastard, triangular thread file, and a round rat tail file), wire brushes both hand and rotary, straight and 90 degree picks.  Some Yamabond 4, some red silicone, maybe some blue loctite. Chain lube, WD40.  Some rags.  And for sure, a comfortable garage stool on wheels.  That should get you started, you can field strip repair/recondition and rebuild a whole RD350 back to a fairly high standard with those minimal hand tools and  other stuff.  That will consume a big part of the $600.  As to brand, I am partial to Craftsman, but then I go back decades to when they were reasonably good middle to upper quality tools sold by Sears.  They are still reasonable middle of the road quality, with a warranty, but you decide.  You will want reasonable quality, don't buy cheap, it's of no use if it breaks or the open end opens up, get what seems reasonable quality.  Don't get sucked into fancy expensive brands unless like someone who posted here, you get a smokin' giveaway deal on used Snapon or whatever.  If you go to the Harbor Freight store and look around, some (but certainly not all) their hand tools are reasonable quality nowadays, but look at it thoughtfully--things like overly thick walls on sockets, and fat heads on end wrenches can cause usability problems. Once you have the basics covered, then you can branch out to a vise, a work bench, a bike stand, lights, a caliper and other measuring stuff, and other power tools besides an electric hand drill like a drill press, grinder, buffer, but all that is icing on the cake, first you have to be able to take the bike you have chosen apart and do the tasks it needs to be reworked. 

The biggest single thing about starting out is being thoughtful and getting what you really need to do what you have to do.  About 50 years ago, Gordon Jennings published an article in Cycle Magazine about what you need in a road race tool box.  He started with a modest hand carried Sears Rally 3 drawer box, and proceeded to name the basic list I gave you above, and I copied that and it was quite enough to get me through 50 years of road racing, with the right tools to field strip the bikes I was racing (in fact, since I was racing both English and Japanese, both vintage and modern, enough to field strip the different bikes I was road racing).  Since I race modern Japanese motocross bikes too, they don't require very much at all, perhaps just 1/4 of what another bike might need, so I have a separate motocross tool box with just that stuff in it--T handle wrenches and stuff you won't need to work on an RD).  So the message is, think about what you REALLY need to do what you REALLY have to do, buy just those tools, and you won't go wrong or waste money.