Upcoming Featured Vendor Posts and a Personal Note

A couple quick things...

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For a long time, I've had in the back of my mind that I should write a "Where To Buy Rocket Stuff" post, but have never gotten around to it.

Well, there are a lot of places to get stuff. Tons of great online vendors, some brick-and-mortar chain stores which tend to carry rocketry supplies, etc. And a post like that would tend to be 1) very long, and 2) incomplete.

But I think I'll have an occasionally-recurring "Featured Vendor" series. As this blog was, at the beginning, a venue for me to share what I was learning about rocketry as I went along, so that other beginners could pick up some tips, I think as I come across good suppliers, it might be helpful for rocket n00bs if I share that information.

Of course, I love JonRocket, and have talked about them multiple times here. And I turn to them often before looking elsewhere. But every vendor has certain things they really do well, and I've tried some new places when looking for certain things lately, so I think I'm going to start giving shout outs to good suppliers.

Now, this will certainly not be comprehensive. I'll only write about vendors I've had experience with. And I'm not in the business of flaming people online, so I may only mention those I've had positive experiences with.

Actually, apart from a couple eBay sellers and iffy third-party Amazon stores, all the rocketry suppliers I've dealt with so far have been great. It's a small community, and word gets around, so you tend to get really great service.

That said, I want this blog to remain positive, so unless I have such a bad experience I feel I must report on it, I'll only talk about the sellers I've gotten good service from.

Now if you don't see a certain supplier here, it doesn't mean they're bad. Either I haven't purchased from them, or haven't gotten to writing the post, or maybe haven't even heard of them before. I'm pretty sure I had a few stores bookmarked on my old computer, and lost them when I got a new one. I'm always looking for new sources for rocket stuff - if you have a tip for me, shoot me an email!

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It's been a busy winter, and Mrs. N00b and I have had a lot on our plates. Consequently, I haven't had as much time to devote to the blog as I used to. While writing this blog isn't my job, and is something I do for fun, I do feel a sense of responsibility to my regular readers. My daily page views have dropped, and it's not surprising - people only show up if you have something to offer.

If you're a longtime reader who checks back often to see if there's anything new here, well, thank you for your continued interest, and I think things will pick up this spring.

The beginners' series on stability will continue for a few more posts, and in between, I'll have other stuff. Once I'm done with stability, I plan to move on to multistage rockets, clusters (multiple motors side by side - a fun challenge), basic rocket design and building from scratch, and lots of other stuff. But I really need to get through stability before I can move on to that stuff.

I can't wait for staging, though. That's going to be a fun one.

Flechette, a small, high-flying two-stage rocket I designed and built last week

The finished prototype of Flechette. I can't wait to test this one out - and talk about it here.

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Have a question you'd like to see addressed on this blog? Email me at iamtherocketn00b@gmail.com.