>>1757142Reamers are pretty unnecessary unless you smoke A LOT, or have smoked a pipe for a LONG time.
They’re not useless, but if you need to put off buying some bit of pipe paraphernalia when you’re just starting out, you can leave the reamer on the store shelf for awhile. A pocketknife with a rounded point will do just fine for most reaming jobs, especially if you leave a little bit of extra cake on the walls for good measure.
In fact, the recently-discontinued Trim Trio knife was a staple of pipe smokers’ keychains, often kept right next to the Czech tool. The short knife blade was just the right size and shape for running along the walls to cut cake from a pipe bowl, and the rounded tip meant you didn’t gouge the bottom of the bowl by mistake.
