Picked up a Bark RIver B1 recently, along with sharpening supplies (strop, sandpaper, bars of abrasive)...

I watched all the videos i could on sharpening convex blades, practiced on some cheap knives I have laying around, and than practiced some more...than once I felt I had the stropping movements down correctly I tried touching up the blade on my B1.

Fail...ended up with a blade that was not sharp...

After working with the 1000 grit paper and the black and green abrasive for a bit, I was able to bring an edge back, but I am still clearly doing something wrong.  The first third of the blade (going from the tip backwards) is very sharp, sharp enough to shave arm hair with..middle of the blade is almost as sharp, but the back end of the blade is just not that sharp.

Any thoughts?

It may be that the knife's bevel is a bit off in that spot and you just haven't removed enough steal to raise a bur in that portion of the blade. You could try sharpening say 20 strokes on just one side and see if you can feel a burr with your finger on the opposite side. If you aren't raising a burr then you may have to try a courser grit and remove more material. You could also try marking the bevel with a sharpy and then give it a few strokes and see if it removes the marker all the way to the edge. A good magnifying glass might help you see the scratch pattern.

Slight imperfections in blade geometry can make a knife's first sharpening difficult.