how do I curve a mesh??

Hi everyone,
I’m new to blender and need some help with something that’s (probably) basic. How do you curve a mesh? before i’ve just moved the verticies around until it looks curvedish but this doesn’t seem very accurate or effective. I’m making a rocket to practice on but the nose cone has proved difficult, especially since the curve is exponetial.
any help would be appreciated.

this is probably what you need
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Modeling/Meshes/Editing/Duplicating/Spin

thanks, that helped heaps