Well so far hubby is fine with the 3" firm dunlop I ordered from Spindle Mattress. We put it on the spring base and besides trying a 1" piece of memory foam on top of his side he has no complaints. I have been playing with different orders of the layers, the best has been what was originally on the bed to start, but tonight I am gonna try the two layers of the purple memory foam on my side just to see how it feels. I have this stack of layers that I’m gonna keep just in case, and the 3" layer that we thought was all the soft latex was actually only a 1" layer glued to a foam layer and another foam layer with strips of cool gel in it. Had no way of seeing that till we cut the top part down the middle. We might take the pillow top off one of these nights to see how that feels also. While it’s all apart we should keep experimenting till we get it right. Thanks for all your help and advice. I’ll let you know what the final verdict is and how I’m gonna put all this back together.
Hi Annmarie,
Thanks for the great pictures!
You have quite a “collection” of materials there … and it’s too bad that the latex didn’t turn out to be all latex.
The “strips” of gel seem somewhat odd to me and I’m curious how they compare in terms of firmness and response to the polyfoam in between the strips. I can’t tell if they’re a solid gel material or a gel foam or gel memory foam material (they look like they could be a “soft solid gel”.)
After this you may have a future in mattress design 
Phoenix
Wonderful pictures, and it looks like you’re doing a great job. Sounds like, if nothing else, you may have solved the original problem (husbands side was too soft), and now you get to see if you can tweak your side even
Interestingly, those curious blue strips… They could also be for zoning. From your pictures, they appear to be limited to the middle region of the mattress, which would be where the heavier part of your hips/pelvis are. If they’re firmer, they may act to firm that part of the mattress. My latex plates have something similar in the middle region…smaller pin holes / more material, causing the middle region to be firmer to support the weight of the hips.
Hi Phoenix,
The blue strips are only under the middle part of all that foam, they are a solid, slightly sticky gel. Since you’re curious to what they do I’ll put a couple of layers together with some weight on them and snap a pic or two so you can see what they do.
Hi dn
I remember somewhere in the paperwork for this thing, they mentioned zoning, makes sense considering where they are located. Phoenix is curious about how they work with the foam around them so I might do a little experiment.
And yes, we think we are all set with hubby’s side, that was the whole point, he works too hard all day to not be able to sleep well. We were stuck with the mattress anyhow, so it made sense to us to put it back together the way we needed it to be. I still might buy a piece of the dunlop latex for my side after the holidays, just to see how I like it. I was thinking of using velcro strips all around the top to secure the original cover back down, I thought maybe run them vertically all around the mattress and using some fabric glue to secure them.
Hi Annmarie,
If they are a solid and slightly sticky gel they would be a soft solid gel (as opposed to memory foam or polyfoam that had liquid gel or gal particles added to it).
They would typically be firmer than the polyfoam they were inserted in so they can be useful for zoning but I thought it was odd that they used strips instead of a solid layer in the center (probably to save costs but it could also be to add some breathability to the layer because the gel isn’t as breathable as polyfoam).
There was enough foam above the layer that the “feel” of the firmer strips probably wouldn’t come through but I was curious how the mix would “feel” and compress with the strips vs just the foam so it would be great so see the pics.
Phoenix