A new mattress means updates

As I indicated a few weeks ago, we got a new mattress and it is a bit heavier than our old mattress (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2023/12/another-busy-day.html).

In the RV, the mattress sits on top of a "box" - essentially a piece of plywood covered with a piece of felt-like fabric. The plywood is hinged near the top of the bed, giving access to storage underneath the bed. There are gas struts that help to lift and hold the wood and mattress up -- and they are not strong enough to hold the bed up with the new mattress.

Carl lifted the bed while I attempted to take pictures of what we currently have:

The current ones were made by Master-Lift...

The code number ML27-80 indicates they are 27" long and support 80 pounds.

Of course, the current struts are 10+ years old (Gracie is a 2012), so they probably don't quite support 80 pound each. I read that you can determine what support you need by removing the struts and putting a piece of wood in to hold up the bed and a bathroom scale under the foot of the piece of wood to measure the weight -- but I'm not sure that we can manage to hold the bed up if the struts were removed. We think we've measured the weight that the bed has when it is just lifted a few inches (so the weight we're having to lift) -- that's 55 pounds. I'm finding other brands of gas struts on Amazon, that are less expensive and no shipping compared to the Master-Lift ones I've found online. Just trying to compare and figure out what we need at this point!