If I may, I would like to suggest a better way to make the wood and age it. I'm not convinced that blasa wood is the way to go. I seriously considered it for my Model T rustbucket build, but I didn't think that it looked as good as what I could make in plastic. The difficulty of painting it and the undeniable textural differences between the plastic model and the wood itself didn't look right to me. It didn't look like "scale" wood, it just looked like,..well,,,balsa wood.
Consider the effect I got here.
To get this effect, I used a cheap Pyrogravure tool that I found at AC Moore's craft stores. It's called a ""Plaid/Stencil Decor Stencil Cutter-" and costs around 13.99.
I used it to scribe in the wood grain, and then used a rough micro-saw to draw across the grain and rough it up.
I
used thin styrene strips, cut to size, and once the grain had been
patterned in and achieved, I bumped up the edges with razor files. Painting could then be done using normal styrene weathering methods. I think I painted it in gray and then used brown and grey washes to age it.
If you decide to go with the balsa, I wouldn't have painted it. I would have used oil washes to stain and age it. In my opinion, ainted wood just doesn't look as realistic as "real " wood stained and faded with the natural color and grain.
This model article has been sold to FSM, and should be in print sometime soon hopefully?
I hope this gives you some ideas!