A secret project, march 16th 2018 is when my father is going to retire. He has worked his whole life for only one company; a huge global dairy company. It is now known as FrieslandCampina. Even though my father has nothing with trucks, never driven them nor is a petrolhead, it was for me obvious to give a Daf truck with 3-axled trailer as a gift for his retirement.
Why? Well, when we (my 2 brothers and I) were little kids, my father gave us a little truck-trailer from his company to us as a gift, something I always kept as a memorandum and was special to me. And since I am a modelbuilder, with interest in motorized vehicles, it was a no-brainer for me.

So I started hunting down a Daf truck, 3-axled trailer and find a extra Friesche Vlag truck, but that was quite hard. I don’t think they were available in retail. But I did find a decent one later one.

 

I got the Dutchman Daf as a starterspoint, but I have to shorten it and remove one axle.

Work started with opening the grill.

I used the bottom of the trailer to align the frame for the trailer

And used thoothpicks to clamp the frame

The frame was measured and marked for cutting

It took me a few attempts, but finally got the frame nicely aligned.

The cabin was glued together, for better handling when painting

Some reinforcements for the chassis, it was quite weak after the cutting

I found the clothespin ideal for resting the chassis on, it is also a good way to see wether the chassis is still aligned.

A dry-fit for the mock-up. on top is the truck and trailer that is my example.

A big error in the Italeri manual, the wheels are done completely wrong

For the fun, I dryfitted it the way it shouldn’t 🙂

Back to seriousness again: pre-paint detailling

The Dutchman had the weird, funky roof, so I cast a flat roof for the cabin.

The trailer had a bit too modern look to it, due to the chamfered edges, so they had to go.

And in the meantime, I added some plumbing to the chassis.

Because the trailer is too new for the truck and I’ve been correcting it, I also made a new lightboard on the rearside, more bulky than the newer style.

Because I had some days off between Christmas and new-years eve, I was able to make some big steps on the paint process. First I spotpainted the repaired/modified parts black.

Than put it in a white primer

And added a medium blue base-caot

I added the ommissed windowposts with 4 strips of styrene

and opened up the lower grille

 

The sanding on the trailer is never ending, seriously..

But the front end looks better now.

I also got the smaller parts into the paintbooth today

After all the prep-work, the cabin went into it’s black base-coat ( to keep the hue in the end the same)

We are getting somewhere, now it’s needs it final blue coat.

It took me 2 spray sessions of an hour to get all the parts in the blue coat.

Finally done

And then it was time for some clearcoat. First the chassis and the smaller parts.

A dryfit for the wheels

The engine in the right-ish color

The wheels are dryfitted

And the cabin went on for an overall look, I had some damage to the roof and wasn’t happy with the way I prepped it, so I need to repair the roof.

I had to make a longer propshaft, I used some copper tubing for that.

And used the kit joints

The engine was clearcoated and I started some basic detailling

I made a simple belt from a sticker

I made a simple belt from a sticker

Small Jump, the engine went into the chassis and added the other parts, the turbo set-up from Italeri was quite a hassle, it didn’t reallt fit properly

 

I went on working on the interior, I chose some typical early eighties colors for it.

 

The chassis is rolling!

With some use of the Molotow pens, I added some clamps

 

Becasue the size of the trailer, I am affraid my biggest airbrush (Harder & Steenbeck Colani) is not going to be sufficient, so I got myself a SATA minijet 4400 HVLP gun, if needed, it could even spray a real car.

 

After I clearcoated the cabine, some weird orange/pink hue was in the back end of the cab in my clear paint, never seen it before, never had to deal it before and no I idea where it came from. It is definately not overspray and it is in my clear paint, weird…

Since I discovered whilst masking for the windowtrim, I first airbrushed that.

 

Than it was time to deal with the back side

With a fresh coat of white paint, it looks a whole lot better.

The windscreen was also a bit of a hassle, since it was somewhat warped.

Working on assembling the interior parts

The grille didn’t coorperate either

Some light in the end of the tunnel! The cab got on the chassis and now I have to start working on the trailer, getting it ready for paint and putting it on the chassis, finishing this project. I only got till march 16th…

5 thoughts on “DAF 3300

  1. Hi
    Thank you so very much for posting this. I owned one of these in the late 80’s as an owner driver.
    I too could only find the 6×4 model and only wanted the 4×2, so your photos were a great help.
    I also learned from you how to put brake hoses on and the use of 2 part clear coat.
    On my model, I also converted to RHD and used a lot of photo-etched parts. I will try and find a way of posting the photos of the completed model….I’m not very PC techie
    Thanks again
    Bob

    1. Hello Bob,

      Great to hear you appreciated it! It is all about sharing the hobby and knowledge 😉 !. I am glad to hear I could help you with your model, I haven’t done the conversion, but I would assume that it might’ve been somewhat challenging.

      I would love to see a picture of your model, I assume you made a replica of the one you used to own? If you have a picture already somewhere uploaded on the net, it should be possible with the ‘IMG’button and then enter the link to that picture.

      With regards,
      Erik

  2. hi, i am planning to convert the same 6×4 kit from italeri to 4×2. how did you do that with the spring packs at the rear axle? beautiful photo report by the way! thanks in advance for your response

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