Tech Talk: How to remove a deck pad

Welcome back to another Appletree Surfboards Tech Talk video. Last year we made a video about how to apply one of our deck pads, but we got a lot of people asking for on a video how to actually remove a deck pad.

We’ve got a board here. We put some pads on it last year. I don’t like these, because they’re too narrow for this board. So I’m gonna take them off and I’m gonna show you a few easy tricks to take them off in one piece. So let’s go!

How to remove a deck pad

Taking off deck pads, it is a bit of a hit and miss. Sometimes they’re really stuck and it is almost impossible to remove the deck pad. They keep falling apart into small bits and it takes you all day. And in the other instance you just pull them off straight away and they’re fine. In this case I expect them to be not too stuck.

What you will need

1. Put them in the sun to make them really nice and soft. The glue does get a bit less sticky and more tacky when it’s warm. So make sure it’s warmed up.
2. And then the other thing you’re going to need is a broomstick. I will show you in a bit why that really helps.
3. The last thing you will need is thinners to clean the board after and to prepare it for a new deck pad. Be super careful with the thinners! Make sure that there’s absolutely no cracks in your board because the foam inside the board will dissolve with the thinner. So don’t pour this over your board. Just a little bit on a cloth and then clean off the remaining glue.

Peel it off with your hands

What I like to do is to start with my hands, peeling off one side and then sort of try to get everything in one go. So there’s a EVA layer and underneath there’s a glue layer, but that’s on a plastic film and you really want to get the plastic film to come along and not separate from the EVA.

Put even pressure on it

You can see there’s already bits left. You can actually pull this off, but then you’re not going to put even pressure on this whole bit and the chances of it ripping are really big. So that’s where the broomstick comes in handy. So what I do is I roll this onto the broomstick. And this way you can pull with even force on the piece that you want to remove and then slowly try to roll.

Now, this is an annoying pad because it has these cutouts, but actually the broomstick really helps. Just roll it onto the broom. There we go, that’s the first bit and it’s completely stuck on your broom.

Recycle the EVA

Get that EVA to your local recycling depot, because it’s actually really easy to recycle. This actually is a nice pad because it’s nine pieces. So you can remove piece after piece. We will repeat the same process for all the pieces of EVA. Sometimes you have one massive pad, which is a bit more annoying, but try to use the broomstick for even pressure. Just go slow and get them off.

Clean the board

Just put a little bit of thinners on the cloth and not on the board itself. I have checked the whole board to see if there’s no cracks and there is none so we can start cleaning. It takes a while for the glue to actually dissolve in the thinner so take your time. No rush, small bit at a time and try to remove as much of the glue residue.

You’ll feel where the glue residue is if a lot is left behind. It’s not a nice thing to do. You’re not going to be able to remove it with a wax comb or something sharp, unfortunately. You really need to dissolve it. There is no other way. And it takes a while. You can sometimes put the cloth on top and just wait for a bit so it soaks in, and it gets soft, and then you can start removing.

The glue needs to dissolve

You can actually see and feel that the glue is soft here where I put the thinner. So here it starts to dissolve and there it’s still hard. So unfortunately this is just a thing that you have to do. Patience is key.

Cool, so we’re finally done cleaning this board with the thinners. It was quite a lot of work because in the end always a lot of glue residue is left. What is really vital for your next pad to stick properly is that you take it all off. I think there was even some left from the pad that was on here before, because this is already going to be the third pad on this particular board.

Put a new pad on it straight away

So yeah, now the board is nice and clean. I do advise to put the new pad on straight away. If you want to know how, check out this video on how to apply a deck pad. It’s a really good long tutorial about how to nicely place on pads.

Anyhow, this board is clean enough. We’re going to get some new pads and hopefully get a session in today. So hope you find this informative. Let us know if you did, give us a follow, give us a thumbs up and we hope to see you in the next video!

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