Way back, Burt mentioned tearing off the deck and reworking boards. I made myself a boat so I thought I should give it a try. Here is a condensed play by play of the board rehabilitation project.
I've literally just finished doing exactly what you did. And I'll never do it again. And I cut my finger just like you!
I ended up with lots of foam tearing when I pulled the deck skin off, and had to level and then add foam before reskinning. Yours looks like it came off clean though. How did you cut it off?
Next time I'll just make a new board. The amount of time it took to revamp I could've almost done one from scratch.
Yep, minimal foar tear up. My method is to create the skin offline on a table, then attach seperately. For decks, I create the skin with glass already finished on the outside. I then glass the inside and attach to the blank using the vacuum. I guess I'm pretty light on the resin and have very little resin soaking into the blank.
I cut the foam off using the sander and 80 grit. I sanded along the seam where the deck overlapped the rail. This was kinda scary due to the removal of a lot of material, but I knew I wanted to thin the rails anyways. Once I could see foam all the way around, it's a "simple" matter of prying the skin off. Getting the first few inches was the hardest, then I could get my whole arm inside and lever up the skin. It hought about reusuing the skin, but the lack of overlap would have been painful to finish and probably ugly to look at. Not to mention the skin was already hardened into a compound shape that would not be the same on the reshape. So I chucked it, I love the way the skins explode when bent past the point of no return.
I agree with the effort thing, the amount of time and effort is as much as a new board, but I hated my "boat" so much I was compelled to do something. I see it as getting two brand new boards for not much more than the price of one.