I have no experience of working with compressed matresses but have seen stacks of banded materials untied as follows: A pallet loaded with a stable weight is lowered by fork lift on to the tied material so that it compresses it even further by a slight amount. This releases the tension on the banding which is then cut. The fork lift then slowly lifts the pallet off the material allowing it to expand to its natural height in a controlled manner. Whether you can use this technique or not in your case will depend on the height and stability of the matress bales, whether you have a firm level floor to work from, any overhead obstructions, etc., but might be worth a try. Regards, John

Hello, The weight used was a square piece of 1" thick steel plate and (from memory) it did cover most of the surface of the pallet. It was also securely fastened on to the pallet as I recall, to make sure it did not slide off as it was positioned on top of the pile of compressed, banded material. The compressed material will release at the rate you lift the weight off it. The limiting factor is obviously on the control of raising the forks of the FLT. Regards