It's not uncommon to have a wooden airplane need some balancing, especially ARF's. When we build a kit, we can select the wood we want based on it's weight to help our balance come out right, but the ARF makers can't afford to do that at a price we're all willing to pay.

It's pretty simple to cut a small hatch in the underside of the tail to relocate your battery, some here have good photos of how to do that. It can be quite seamless and clean!

If you don't want to cut covering, you've still got a few options. You can try to remove weight from the front (lighter front tire, wooden instead of plastic prop, lighter spinner, etc.). Once you've exhausted all those options, add weight. For the record, 4oz on an Alpha 60 won't be noticed. Huge wing area, lots of power. Don't sweat it if you must use weight.

My first trainer is a kit bashed S-ray 25 size 3 channel job. Built and bashed by a friend. It's nose moment is so short it took almost 1/2 pound of lead to balance. This is a .25 size plane! Flies great, slow, fast, good climb out, fine handling. It is far more important that the CG be correct than that the plane be lighter than light. Make what efforts you can to keep the weight down, and then do what you must to correct the CG.

J