The best way to remove Monokote is using heat from a heat gun. The reason is that when you try to pull monokote off without using it it's possible for it to actually pull chunks of wood out when you remove the covering. When you use a heat gun it heats up the adhesive and then you can easily pull it away from the wood without working about it sticking to the wood. Using a soldering iron to "cut" the covering is actually a good idea because it will melt the covering and not damage the wood underneath.

Once you have the monokote off you're probably going to have to sand the wood down to remove the color that is stained into it. Monokote has it's color layer embedded in the adhesives so the wood gets stained the same color as your covering.

Hope this helps

Ken