bond beam/form height question

We are getting ready to set our forms tomorrow! It is my understanding that the top of our 1x4 forms will be the top of the bond beam. The pool site runs slightly down hill (maybe 6 inches of drop from house side of deck to back side of deck).

We have a large rectangular patio that is 37' wide. The pool deck will start 6' from this patio and the pool (18x36 rectangle) will be parallel to the patio. In the middle of the patio, there will be a 6' wide side walk connecting the patio to the pool deck (we will put a drain at the bottom of this sidewalk). So there will be 6' of grass between the patio and the pool deck (except where the sidewalk is). The pool deck will be 6' wide. So in total there will be 12 feet between the patio and the coping of the pool.

So my question is, how high should we set the bond beam/forms at????? I have read that you should have 1/4 inch drop per linear foot between the final pool coping and the patio. We are using a brick bull nose coping that is 9" long and is 2 & 1/16" thick. I assume this brick will have about 1/2 inch to 3/4 of an inch of mortar between it and the bond beam.

So by my calculations the brick coping should be 3 inches higher than the patio. This seems high! Maybe it should only be half that, since there is only 6' of deck between the coping and patio (distance not including the grass).

I think if we set the form height the same height as the patio, we would end up with a coping height that would be about 2 & 3/4 inches higher than the patio. That seems pretty high to me.

If I use the 1.5 inch drop, I would set the form height/bond beam 1.25 inches below the height of the patio. This would result in the final coping height being 1.5 inches higher than the patio (after the brick coping/mortar is placed on the top of the bond beam).

What am I missing???? Any advice??? 3 inches or 1.5 inches of drop????

cdocon