Ignoring Hijack.
Tom:
Welcome back to the hobby. I'm pretty much in the same shoes, just a few months farther into it.
I've looked over the inventory of several rocket kit makers, and of my current wish list, Fliskits covers nearly half and when I rank them in terms of preference and what I want to get first,
Jim's stuff is considerably more dominant. I think I fell in love with his kits based on a catalog I picked up at NSL (the NAR National Sport Launch) this year. He's got a real handle on what a cool rocket means.
Here's another cool place to go look. Tim Van Milligan at
Apogee is quite the engineer and has some nice kits and materials. At least as important, he's written a really good book on
Model Rocket Design and Construction that will inspire you to no end when you're ready to do scratch-built stuff. I'm itching to try some stuff, but there are so many good kits I want to do too and so little time to fit it all into. Sigh.
Fot good hobby news and a place to link to other information from,
Rocketry Online! is great.
Other Good Rocketry Sites
This guy has more good stuff archived than just about the rest of the web. Ya just gotta wander through this site a few times.
Ninfinger Productions He's got tips, rocketry catalogs that go way back, and way too much more to try to list here.
Great parts for scratch-building? Try
Balsa Machining Service.
Want the straight story on most any kit you may beconsidering?
Essence's Model Rocketry Reviews is the place to go.
This one I discovered on the Ninfinger site while writing this message. I'll be looking it over soon.
Cloned Rockets Central
Lots of good information all in one place. A very good place to go read.
rec.models.rockets FAQ
This has proven to be a very popular fin finishing technique, and it's worked well for me too. Many people (myself included) have used the 3M Super 77 adhesive rather than Rollataq. In my case, I simply couldn't find the Rollataq, so I tried the Super 77 and see no need to try anything else for this use. Works fine.
Any how, I've gone on long enough. A little web surfing, and you'll run across more good stuff than I've listed here. So, I'll sign off for now.
As a parting thought, though, definitely go get a copy of
Handbook of Model Rocketry, which is almost the Bible of the hobby. It's good.