an old welder was saying he use stainless steel rods on all the mild steel welding jobs, I should have asked why?
The lathe is fixed now, I ground a deep v along the crack, nearly right though, got some rods and flux from BOC, heated the whole thing up till all the paint burnt off and brazed it, have it a file up, and a scrape.
Its working better than it ever did must have been cracked before I even got the lathe, the work doesn't ride up on the tool anymore and I can adjust the bearing now