Second try on a waterstone

[benlg]

Paramilitary 2 on a 1K/8K Norton Japanese waterstone, not perfect but I'm proud of the effort

 

[Cynic2701]

It looks like - going off of the grind lines left over - that you need to focus a bit more near the heel. I use pressure from my index and ring finger to "focus" sharpening on a particular area that needs more attention. Since the angle of the bevel increases as it moves towards the spine, you might want to also consider very slightly lowering the edge angle as you approach the tip to compensate. The entire length of the edge should be sharp without dull sections--I'd need to have the knife in hand to check, but I would think that it likely feels sharpest midway through the blade, and a bit duller near the tip and the heel.

Otherwise, it looks like you've done a pretty good job for just starting out!

 

[benlg]

Thanks for the tip, I will try that! The tip and mid is shaving sharp, almost factory edge. The heel is not, tried my best to finish it but took too much time and had other matters to attend to lol. The grind line was uneven in the middle so I did try to focus the sharpening and was able to fix it. But I will def try your trick. I noticed it wasn't a visual thing but rather I got the knack for the feel and sound of the knife on the stone. After I got that down I started getting much better results

 

[Jason B.]

What I see is an error in starting position, Spyderco blades have a constant curve from heel to tip so you can't start "flat" on the stone with the edge. It's this curve and thin blade that makes the performance of these blades so good, and if you take it out you lose a little of that performance.

As Cynic says, focus you're grinding pressure where you want the grinding to happen, in this case at the ricasso.