How to finish a painted cue....

[kvoskou]

Hello all,
I've recently made a cue to fit the restricted space around our table, and along with my two sons designed a pattern for the shaft.
After many hours of careful masking and spraying we have a beautiful cue but I have a problem with the finish.
I coated it with several layers of diamond hard varnish, sanding gently between each coat - it's as smooth as silk.
Despite this it doesn't slide over the hand as smoothly as our usual cues do. Even well finished and smooth varnish does kind of 'stick' to the hand in a funny way.
I'm tempted to simply rub it with super-fine sandpaper, but it's varnish - it's already very smooth and using sandpaper - no matter how fine - is still going to make it less smooth than it already is (isn't it?)
Is there some kind of laquer or coating I can apply over the top to get the right finish?
I don't want to sand to the wood because we'll lose the paint job we love - which is part of the reason we made the cue in the first place.
All advice gratefully received!

[Dave Walton]

Not a finish as such but you could try cue slide from craftsman cues

[louise sheldon]

Can you just sand shaft and leave butt varnished , you would need to remove all varnish off shaft , you could put a ring of paint between shaft and butt to give a clean separation of butt and shaft .

[andy carson]

Can you just sand shaft and leave butt varnished , you would need to remove all varnish off shaft , you could put a ring of paint between shaft and butt to give a clean separation of butt and shaft .

i would do that and oil the shaft not varnish it.

[kvoskou]

I haven't had the heart to take any of the paint off yet but I've tried gently smoothing the varnished cue (especially the shaft) with various grades of fine sandpaper up to 3000, and surprisingly it's much better, though still not perfect.
I would say that the sticky ('squeaky') nature of varnish reduces with superfine sanding but doesn't disappear altogether.
Now that the cue is not too far from being okay I'll try the cue slide product and see if that completes the job.
Thanks for the tips.

[andy carson]

I haven't had the heart to take any of the paint off yet but I've tried gently smoothing the varnished cue (especially the shaft) with various grades of fine sandpaper up to 3000, and surprisingly it's much better, though still not perfect.
I would say that the sticky ('squeaky') nature of varnish reduces with superfine sanding but doesn't disappear altogether.
Now that the cue is not too far from being okay I'll try the cue slide product and see if that completes the job.
Thanks for the tips.

depends on the humidity as well in where you are playing and even how clean you hands are. varnished shafts are notorious for being sticky when playing in slightly warm conditions or your hands are slightly damp and dirty, it very quickly transfers to the shaft and the varnish making the cue feel as though it is sticking on the bridge, and giving that tell tale squeak

i did it with an old cue of mine which i gave away when i went handmade and 3/4 and took the top 9 inches of varnish off completely and oiled that bit instead, very easy to do just keep going with finer and finer grades of paper, then wet and dry to the finest grade, give it a polish when putting the oil on, put a bit more on, let it soak in, leave for 24 hours, and repeat the oiling, wiping away any left overs inbetween each time, silky smooth to play with that was, dont understand now why i gave it away