The Compleat Distiller

THE COMPLEAT DISTILLER 76
Beyond this, we don't want to belabor the point. Good safety equipment is no substitute for common
sense! If you develop your workshop beyond the basics, then you will be bombarded with sound safety
advice from other sources, be it from the manufactures of the equipment you buy, or from instructors at
classes you may attend.
However, we'd like to add just one word of caution. In any activity or line of work, the most dangerous
phase is after you develop skills and familiarity, and caution begins to lapse. Many people have been
badly hurt or killed by bad habits that built up bit by bit as they gained confidence and experience. Be
forewarned, and guard against this tendency.
Some basic requirements
What do you need to get started? A place to work, something to hold the pieces being worked on, and
a few basic tools will allow you to make a surprising number of quite complicated things. Of course,
the better the workspace and the tools, the easier many tasks will become. As with all hobbies, it is
best to start with the basics and try your hand. If you are having fun and making progress, you will
find it far easier to justify each acquisition of more and better tools and equipment.
The following list of tools is basic, and by no means comprehensive. You may need only a few of
them, so we've tried to give the list some sort of "priority" based on what we find useful. Your
priorities may be different, depending on what you're trying to do.
• Safety goggles
• Ruler, marked in both inches and centimeters.
• Hacksaw, with fine metal-cutting blade.
• Screwdrivers, both flat and Phillips head (cross-head).
• Hammer.
• Pliers − especially a set of waterman’s pliers (slip-joint type)
• Leather workshop gloves (use them when handling hot components)
• Vice and/or a couple of vise-grip pliers.
• Hand drill, preferably a rechargeable hand-held electric drill.
• Files, as many different types as you can get.
• Adjustable wrench.
• Emery paper − rough and fine grades.
• Center punch.
• A set of good quality drill bits, both metric and inch sizes
• Hand-held propane torch
• Lead-free solder and flux.
• Wire brush.
• Carpenter’s square.
• Wood saw.
• Vernier calipers (extremely useful for measuring tubing − cheap yet accurate digital ones are
widely available).
Add to this one of those folding "Workhorse" benches if your space is limited. These are the type
which feature a "vise top", and are sometimes called "mitre benches", with guides for angle cuts.
The hand drill is the only power tool you may need at first. If you take on many projects, you will
quickly want to move up to a good quality drill press. By the time you get around to lathes, milling
machines and welding gear, you'll probably be able to teach us a few things about workshop
techniques!
One readily available tool that will allow an amateur to “fudge” a little or a lot is a Dremel® Moto-
Tool. This is a very small handheld cylinder with a rotating shaft that spins about 30,000 rpm. Many
cutting wheels, brushes, grinders of various shapes, buffers, etc are available. With a little ingenuity
you can do almost anything with it. It's so compact, you can put it away in a drawer for storage.