Back in 1977, one of the rockets my brother liked was the Estes X-15.  We never saw any in our area, so true to form, we decided to build our own.  I had picked up a bag of balsa sheets and chunks from Kay-Bee Toy & Hobby, and we were always scavenging tubes, so we picked a tube we liked, found a chunk of balsa that we could form into a cockpit nose cone, and eyeballed up a set of fins based on the catalog picture.  I slapped on a coat of black dope and we stood back and admired a really horrible looking creation.  It flew once, and badly, on an Estes C6-5, going unstable off the rod and rekitting itself in the middle of Blossom Lane.