Ok, the prospect of another 5-6 hours of bad sleep made me want to mangle my mattress. So I did! It worked out well, and it only took about an hour to do.
I wasn’t intending to take pictures at first (just wanted to get it done), so I didn’t take any of the start. I had read westcoaster’s post beforehand, and things were roughly similar. I used some small scissors to cut into a corner to investigate the comfort layer configuration. There were 3 layers of padding, and two could be simply lifted up (the 2nd was trivially stapled to the 3rd only on the corners). Once I figured out where to cut, I grabbed a knife and sawed the top off.
The third layer of foam was glued onto a foam boundary that surrounded the springs (so it ran along the outside edge of the mattress). I didn’t expect that, but looking more closely at westcoaster’s pictures, he may have had a similar situation. I cut a slit into the foam along where it was glued together to investigate. That’s where my first picture starts.
I felt that foam and it was obviously degrading in the center of the mattress, so I cut around where it was glued (careful not to puncture the “sack” the springs were in) to remove it as well. So that left the spring sack, or whatever it is called, fully exposed. After that, I had to remove a ton of staples on the side foam to prevent any accidental stabbings of my sheets/topper, then I tossed my 3" 19 ILD dreamfoam bedding latex topper on it. Feels comfy when I tested it, but I won’t know for sure until I sleep on it tonight.
Is it safe to put the topper directly on the springs? It has a fairly thick fabric on the bottom, but would the spring pressure degrade the topper at all (like punch rings into it) over time?
Also sorry for blurriness on the first couple pictures, camera was too close.