I was recently at a job and needed a sander. Of course when I went out to my truck, my Dewalt wasn’t in there. It was sitting at home on the shelf. Since I needed a sander right away, I had to take a trip to my local Menards to buy a tool that I already own. They offer a bunch of brands, but the two that stood out to me were the Bosch and Hitachi. I don’t have much experience with Hitachi products, while Bosch I am pretty familiar with. So for me the choice was easy and I went with the Bosch. I really needed that sander to smooth out Walnut and Purple Heart. Plus I wanted something with good dust control since I would be using it in the house sometimes.
I ended up going with the Bosch 5″ Random Orbital Sander model ROS10. I would have gone with a variable speed, but they didn’t offer one at the store. One of the biggest benefits for me was the Microfilter system with the twist off canister. I have to say this does an awesome job at trapping and containing all the dust. You can even see in our video below that we were sanding on a black table and there was very little dust falling onto the table. The canister was very easy to take off and clean. Bosch also implemented an anti-spill canister which helps keep the waste inside the canister and prevents it from going back into the sander. The second day I brought my Dewalt vacuum and hooked the port up to the sander and that also worked extremely well.
Once I attached the discs, they pretty much stayed in place. I did have one that didn’t hold, but that could have been a bad disc. According to Bosch this has 35,000 long-life hooks which gives it a better and tighter fit so discs stay in place. I am taking their word and didn’t even try to count them.
The braking system works very well. Bosch uses a dampening system which helps prevent swirl marks. However it wasn’t too touchy that it was a pain and would stop the spinning when I added a little more pressure for more aggressive removal.
The biggest thing I found with this sander is not only how well it works, but how smooth the operation is. The rubberized grip is very nice and feels good in your hand. The vibrations are very low, lower than I expected. One note. I was reading through some other reviews to see what people were having problems with and some people say the vibration wasn’t good and the sander jumped a lot. I didn’t get my sander to jump and actually thought the sander handled very nicely. I am not sure what was up with their sanders, but this never happened to mine.
Overall this is a great sander. Very little vibration and does a great job collecting the dust in the canister. One thing I really like is the longer cord, so I am not dragging around a knot and an extension cord. Between this and my Dewalt, I have to say both are nice. The Dewalt is better because it has variable speed, but the Bosch has a much better collection system. For $60 it’s hard to go wrong.
I have the same Bosch sander that’s variable speed. I guess its one model up. Its great. not one problem. Money well spent. Even came with a case.
appreciate the review! how long of a life would you give this bosch sander?
where is the video though? haha
Ha, Eric forgot to add the video! I added it for you John! Thanks for catching that.