The raked stage worked great,  was a pain to build, lived for days with a four foot level and coffee.   Landed a curtain of water just up on the "sidewalk" edge above the "streeet guttter" .  Great visual effect of the splash and made a portion of the sidewalk with a 1/4 inch lower height to allow for pooling of water to splash in.   The raked stage collected all of the water and we used 2" pvc pipe to send it back to a collection area where a sump pump sent it back to my main, sanitized, supply tank, 300 gallons, where the transfer pump sent it heavenward again,   Closed system, ran it one time for about an hour.  kind of nice to sit on a chair and watch it, knowing you built it.  Just wish I could have had a brandy instead of coffee.  Ah well, when doing school plays one must make do.

Charlie 

   Your suggestion of coating the raked stage with sand was really good.  Put the second coat of paint on and spread sand over it, then let it dry and coated it with another layer of paint.  Worked great.  The whole system worked really well.   threw about 500 -600 gallons of water at it each show and lost about 2 ounces each time....in the same two spots, slow drips, could see them with a flash light and lying on my stomach but couldn't get at them.   Oh well, acouple of ounces out of a few hundred gallons I could live with.

   Thank you for the tip.

Charlie

 

P.S. looking like we will be doing either " 42nd Street" or "Crazy for You" next year, any suggestions?