Before they got really fire conscious, the floor of some airliners was composite balsa and some kind of planking on the end grain. There was quite a bit of balsa composite with plywood in the DeHavilland Mosquito. Many other commercial and industrial uses like that also. Nothing really new. I have never seen a need for such a construction technique in any of the model airplane disciplines I have participated in; free flight rubber, glider and gas, R/C sailplanes, R/C helicopters, and control line stunt and scale. To keep end grain from soaking up excess glue, you pre-glue by rubbing in some glue and letting it dry, then assemble the part. That's model airplane 101. It's spelled out like that in just about every rubber power model kit I have ever built and every beginners model airplane book or construction article I have ever read.
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee