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The entrails of a mattress |
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The inside of
a mattress, where your slumber is actually made peaceful and
cozy, shouldn't be a mystery , even though the Neolithic
days of leaves, grass and straw are long gone. If it is, then
allow us to help you uncover it and provide an overview of
the various construct choices you face when for a new bed,
along with a glimpse at their finishing touches.
The skeleton or inside of a mattress frame is generally produced
following one of 3 different coil structures, being:
• Bonnell Coils, sporting the classic
Open Sprung structure
• Continuous Spring, sometimes referred
to as Posture Springing
• Marshall Coils, also known as
Pocket Springs
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Bonnell Coils
or Open Sprung Mattresses |
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Anyone one who ever had to sleep
on a bed is bound to have sampled one of these at least once,
for they employ the most widely commercialized construct. It
consists of running a tight helical wire, either vertically
or horizontally, with the purpose of linking together a collection
of hourglass-shaped coils at their tops and bottoms, to form
an Open Coil Spring System of several rows.
Each spring stacks up to 5 or 6 coils, and most standard double
beds contain up to 325 such springs (further more if the bed
is Queen or King sized).
The diameter of the core unit is often surrounded by a steel
rod to hold it firm and strong. The tightness of the coil itself
and its diameter are referred to as "Gauge". A 15
gauge, for example, would determine a softer and cushier mattress,
while a 12.5 uses thicker steel and offers a more firm end result.
In other words, a tighter gauge makes for a stronger bounce.
Higher-quality mattresses usually call for a 14 gauge coil.
While the basic skeleton provides you with support, all that
remains is to fill the inside and surface for comfort, then
stitch it into a finished product. |
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Continuous Spring
or Posture Springing Mattresses |
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Like the open structure, this variation
on the spring system forms a network, but starting with a single
length of wire to be basically knitted into a continuous structure,
much resembling your garden variety yard fence, and finally
have a series of them joined in standing vertical rows at equal
intervals. This spring structure is usually made from thinner
steel then the open coil, thus offering a softer feel.
Engineers at Slumberland designed such an interlinked system
which calls for the entire mattress to work as one in supporting
a sleeper's body weight from head to toe. Their trademarked
Posture Springing system aims at responding
to every body movement, considering that humans experience over
60 position changes in a single night's sleep.
Sealy and Silentnight brands also commercialize their own vision
of the product, the former with its famous Posturepedic
line, and the latter with its Miracoil series
using twice the number of springs regularly found in such types
of mattresses. Like Slumberland's, both offer head to
toe weight distribution. |
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Marshall Coils
or Pocket Sprung Mattresses |
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The "Pockets" designation
of this entry pretty much gives the punch away; the same coils
used for the open variation are enclosed into individual Pocket
Springs. A series of those are joined together either
in leveled rows or in honeycomb patterns, and securely stitched
at the base of the frame.
The idea is to provide additional support for the body's
pressure points, like hips and shoulders, and allow motion separation
all through the bed. Such support is made more efficient if
manufactured with the use of Hand-Side finishing
techniques, which consists in stitching the outer-rim pockets
to the mattress wall two rows deep, from the outside-in, reducing
internal rumbling of the pockets and reinforcing their strength
all the way to the mattress' edge. |
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Filling and Finishing |
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With the skeleton assembled, it's
time to enclose it within the very frame, and have it strongly
stitched shut. Filling is first added into the frame, the quality
of which will depend on the manufacturer's choice and
his targeted retail price. Materials for these "stuffing"
vary from cashmere to wool, silk, mohair or latex. Certain companies
prefer using man-made materials, sometimes of their very own
devise such as branded "Ultralux" or "Superlux";
those are usually made of white fiber or specialized "memory"
and "reflex" foam.
The sleeping surface sees horizontal layers of filling applied
over the spring unit, using once more the type of materials
determined by the manufacturer for their price and quality.
These layers are subjected to either "Micro-Quilting"
or "Panel-Quilting", stitching
techniques used to hold the filling in place by creating a pattern
that maintains a flat surface. Some mattresses can also sport
"Hand Tufting" methods, which consists
in pinning stitch points vertically through the surface right
down to the core spring unit, and usually topping them off with
little buttons. This final product offers a wavier and pillowed
appearance to the surface. |
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Now that the inner-self of a mattress
has been debunked, it is up to you to determine which will best
suit your needs. The ensuing purchase of sheets, pillows and
decorating Teddy bears is another matter though, one we'd
rather not get into; at least not in this section. |
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