@tcinla, haha pretty close to 1:1 indeed. To be honest, it is not that bad (but not 1:48 either), the mahogany strip is very thin (I will show a picture later on) and follows the surface quite nicely, hopefully some sanding later on will improve the looks. Decals might have worked easier indeed but I wanted to prevent the 'plastic' look of them. As said, I'm experimenting to see what can be achieved by using real wood.

@fiveten, thank you, Spiros

@yellow10, that's the main idea behind it, Paul, learning. I will thin it once all is in place and do hope to get a uniform wooden look.

John,
This is looking really nice. I’m using my phone to respond so I don’t know how to reply where it gives you a notification. I’ll try to do that later tonight.

This is exactly how it should look. Once you get the wood down to where it looks good to you it will be even better.

I’m going to be scratch building the fuselage frame work and not use the kit supplied interior parts.

Basically I will be building the fuselage just like we did as kids when we built simple box frame fuselage for our balsa wood airplane models. I will be using the small 1/16” square wood sticks to make it. Then I will add the wire cross bracing and scratch built a seat for it as well.

There’s an excellent resource for pictures on how the author built his N-17 and the picture I have just posted is fully credited to him and not mine.

I will be working on the Nieuport project again soon, possibly even tonight and will post some pictures when I do. Maybe it would help you ? In case you are not able to use the kit supplied interior parts. The cockpit is very simple and it can easily be done this way.

I’m building the wooden interior fuselage so that it will slide into the confined area inside of the fuselage once the halves are taped together. Once it fits correctly and is the correct size it will be adding all of the details such as the wires, seat and instruments (which are only a few).

I’m looking forward to seeing what you post next.

Take care my friend.

That wood looks good, John. Very precise application, great work.

The wood looks very nice so far, my friend @johnb!

Trying to get the frame work replicated.

WOW ! This looks amazing ! I like how you did the fuselage framing.

@j-healy, thank you, John. I had thoughts about framing the entire aircraft, but this scale and not being able to see it after fuselage closure kept me from doing that.

@lgardner, thanks a lot, Louis. Not that perfect, but with the entire interior installed I do hope it will add something.

@fiveten, thank you, Spiros.

That cockpit is really coming to life, John. Looks good.