Maaaaaaaaan you gotta love sanding sealer.
Since this is a working model, all the wood needs to be protected from water. The best way (IMHO) to do this is with several coats of sanding sealer. As I understand it, this is a cellulose dope with some sort of thickener mixed in. Whatever the recipe, you brush it on and it seals the wood. Do this in a confined space and you are so happy you simply don't care how it works...
4 coats with a sanding between each were enough to transform the feel of the balsa wood. I love the way it becomes a hard and smooth surface instead of the soft and slightly rough one. Drying time is measured in minutes, sometimes seconds, on a hot day so the process doesn't take long.
To tidy up the joints I used plastic wood between coats. This is horrible as the filler is much harder than the wood so sanding is harder as you wear away the surrounding surface before tidying the joint. In the end I used a coarse file as it was possible to localise the sanding to just the filler.
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