Starter set · 30 bits
Bosch RBS030MBS, 30-piece set
The most expensive set on this shelf, and the only router bit listing here that does not publish its shank size.
Every figure below names its source. Each one is a manufacturer
specification read off the listing itself. The judgments are ours.
And no shank size
The part number is RBS030MBS. The title is “30 pc. Carbide-Tipped Wood Router
Bit Set”. None of the five features gives a diameter.
Shank before everything
A router bit is held by its shank, and the collet that holds it has one size.
A quarter of an inch is 6.35 mm (0.25 in). Eight millimeters is eight. A 1/4 in bit drops
loose in an 8 mm (0.31 in) collet and an 8 mm (0.31 in) bit will not enter a 1/4 in one — and a
collet is a precision clamp, not a hole: there is no ring, no bush and no adapter
that makes either fit the other safely.
Which is why the two halves of this shelf cannot be mixed. Every American listing
here is 1/4 in; every European one is 8 mm (0.31 in). The published Spetool page on this
shelf states the rule in one line, and it is the most useful sentence on the
shelf.
Which makes this the one page where it cannot be checked
Thirteen of the fourteen listings on this shelf publish the figure. This is the
fourteenth, and the most expensive.
An 8 mm (0.31 in) bit will not enter a 1/4 inch collet. A 1/4 inch bit will spin in an
8 mm (0.31 in) one. There is no third outcome, and nothing on this page says which this is.
An anti-friction coating
The only claim of its kind on either half of this shelf, and a real one.
Routing hardwood or resinous softwood lays a brown lacquer on the bit behind the
cutting edge. That deposit raises friction, which raises heat, which softens the
brazing and dulls the carbide faster.
A low-friction surface keeps the chip moving and the deposit off — and makes the
bit easier to clean, which is the maintenance nobody does.
Micrograin
Grain size, without a classification band.
Fine grains give a keener edge that holds longer and chips more easily. Coarse
grains do the reverse.
The SICWOOD straight bits on this shelf publish C3 micrograin, which is both. This
publishes the grain and not the band.
Either is better than neither, which is where all seven European listings on this
shelf sit.
Thirty bits, none named
The largest count on either half of this shelf, and the same silence as the other
five sets here.
What a Bosch set buys that the others do not is a spares chain and a service
history — a bearing can be replaced, and the range will still exist in five
years. The published Bosch flush trim page on this shelf names the limit of that
promise in its cons: a bearing is a wear part and it is not always replaceable.
Availability
Read on the day this page was built: $157 at the American Amazon shop.
Read from Keepa on the day this page was last revised; stock and price both move without notice.
Prices quoted in this text were read on 2026-10-07. The live price is at the top of the page.
