Bosch Cordless Dust Extractor

Above: Bosch GAS 18V-10 L cordless dust extractor – snap on the castors and it’s ready to go to work. 

Review and photos: Raf Nathan

A dust extractor is a pretty standard tool now and this one will fit the bill for Bosch cordless owners. Once you pick a brand for your cordless power tools you are stuck with it however, as most battery systems are not inter-changeable unfortunately.

Out of the box this cordless dust extractor is pretty well ready to go to work. Snap the four castors onto the base, fit the hose and slide in a Bosch 18 volt battery. It is rated L-class for dust, meaning light duty filtering of expelled air, so it is not a replacement for high volume extractors in very dusty workplaces. An M-class is better for most professional woodwork.

However, this is a light tool and with battery only weighs about 5.5kg (depending on battery fitted). This makes it easy to carry around while using it as a vacuum cleaner. I raced around my workshop with it, cleaning all the corners and hard to reach spots. Connected to my random orbit sander it seemed to work as well as my standard corded dust extractor.

It has a reasonably sized six litre canister to collect waste which is easy to empty. The pleated internal filter will need tapping out and cleaning regularly, although this is easy to access.

The motor is 260 watt only so it spins hard to generate suction. As such, noise levels are very high at 85db 900mm from the source and a big 98db at the source. Hearing protection is essential.

It comes with a 35mm diameter hose with fittings for both power tools and vacuuming. Run time is critical for any cordless tool and this is rated at four minutes per battery amp so a 4 amp battery will run around 16 minutes. I used a high end 8 amp Pro-core battery and got 35 minutes or so easily. Given the motor size it would be prudent to not overuse it, and to let it cool down between extended run times.

It is pretty well an all-plastic build and given how hard the small motor is working I would not expect good longevity if used constantly day after day. However I could not fault it when used daily for short time periods, and highly recommend it.

Review tool supplied by Bosch, see https://www.bosch.com.au/ Available from Bunnings and power tool dealers

Raf Nathan @treeman777 is a Brisbane woodworker and contributor to Australian Wood Review