Hi Will! Would you mind sharing the name of your waterline tile? It looks great!
Ok Will, I measured how far out the bottom lip or ledge of my spillway hangs out from the spa wall. Between 1 1/4" and 1 1/2". Not much at all. I have a 2 speed pump. When on high, the water drops nicely. On low speed, the water mostly wraps under the ledge and then down. I think you're going to want that bottom tier to hang out a little more.
Someone posted (I can't find it) something about a groove under the front edge of the bottom tier to get a nice fall of water. But I really don't know the engineering behind that. Maybe someone will chime in with more info.
Love the waterline tile! Ours was still in good shape and matched the existing flagstone so we left it in place but if I had gone for something new, it would have been a tile like that.
Do you have a finish picked out yet? We got a Wet Edge Prism Matrix, Level One, and I really like the texture-- not rough at all.
I do almost all the gardening around here.... nothing like trying to do that kind of work to make you appreciate the guys who do that all the time. It's very hard labor... I'm always amazed at the guys who do the roofing around here (we've had some hail storms the last few years, so almost every roof around has been replaced). Up on those roofs, some of which are steeply slanted, hauling around heavy pallets of shingles. I would fall off the dang roof!
Gloves and rent a trencher! That looks like it was exhausting. It sucks to dig a trench here in FL and our ground is soft! Those pavers would have torn up my hands too and I am used to manual labor (have horses at home so I have calluses on my hands from shoveling manure, leveling dirt, moving 55# bales of hay, etc) but I hate digging!