Is the Campag tool necessary for their 11sp chain?

A friend of mine is buying an 11sp Chorus group-set, and is convinced he has to spend ~200-odd bucks on the Campag chain tool.

Is it just Campag propaganda?

You're friend can use the Park 11s tool or the Pedros 11s tool. They come without the somewhat steep price of the Campy tool.

Also, there are people joining 11s chains with 10s chain tools, and just not riveting the pin. Whether that's acceptable or not depends on what level of risk you assume exists and are willing to take. Lastly, if you do a search--googlify, that is--some folks have made their own chain riveting tools themselves.

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Right. Thanks. I think I'll talk him into getting a shop to do it.

2 other 11s, Campagnolo chain tools around now but I haven't installed a 11s Campagnolo chain w/o mushrooming the pin end so I don't know how the chain would work w/o doing that. But, with the finicky chains around these days(including sram and shimano 10s ones) I would recommend doing what the manufacturer says to do when installing. When I was starting out with a Sedis $6 chain, seems broken chains were almost unheard of, not today.

Borrow one and fit a KMC 11 speed quick link

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Thanks for the tips