I used to. Then I built one kit that was VERY stingy with the balsa and found I would have needed to do the internal framing with scrap pieces from the long fuselage stringers! Grrrr. Now I build the longest parts first and keep the scrap. You could still do the tail pieces first, provided you have "packaged" the long wing and fuselage parts together and set them aside.

Now I lay out all the pieces and sort by length. More than once I have found I used a long piece and cut it . . . then found a shorter piece in the box and had to replace or splice to get the length I needed. In a biplane, build the upper wing first. I ALWAYS forget to do this and usually end up with the lower (often smaller) wing done and too short a leading or trailing edge piece for the upper wing. D'oh!