I've got a cheap (£25/$30) hand held bagless 500W vaccum cleaner made
out of ABS plastic that must create a lot of static electricity when in
operation.

http://www.beldray.com/beldray-bel04...-lite-red.html

I'd quite like to use it to clean dust out from electronic equipment.

From another vacuum cleaner (industrial photo-copier maintenance thing)
I have a short conductive hose and various end tools, so I'm almost
there; but I need to ground something - possibly the hose coupling to
the cleaner.

Would that work? Or would the passing air circumvent it, and become
charged anyway.

If so, I think I might need to make conductive and internally ground
parts of the vacuum cleaner, using metal loaded paint and/or aluminium
tape. Work that I want to avoid if possible.

--
Adrian C