thanks that seemed to work. i was surprised to see the second 595 counts first. so i swapped the LED inputs about. So the second 595 has the first LED's attached and the first 595 has the second LED's. I have the serial monitor printing and it counts up fine.
Just out of interest since I have this setup how would I specify a single number to display like "43690" which would hopefully display 1010101010101010 (On, off, On off etc)?
Regards
Geoff