Welded Nut & Washer Flower Jig

So this one is going to take some explaining: I wanted to give my wife a flower for her birthday. But I also wanted it to last. I happened to see something online and decided I wanted to make one too. But I quickly realized that I was really bad at trying to align nuts while welding. (My first attempts looked terrible.) I realized I had the perfect idea - 3d print a jig. Several (5+ revisions later) I now have a working jig.

Print the base (Yellow in render) and 7 pins (Red in render). Insert the tapered pins in the jig. Grab seven 1/2"-13 (or -20) nuts and stick them on the jig. Then tack the nuts together. You did print in a non-flammable material, right? If not, [try to] keep it really, really cool - Burning plastic will quickly get all over your project!

Pop the pins out of the jig one by one (there is no other way to release the nuts off of the jig because of the pin angles - I found that out on revision 2 of the jig). Finish the welding and polish to make it pretty. 

Unfortunately, I was unable to find stainless steel jam nuts - everyone wanted to sell me zinc plated steel - those really don't polish and the fumes from welding zinc should be avoided at all costs...

Two different Jig revisions differ only in nut spacing. For some reason, some nuts I got had a different size taper on the edges which resulted in the jig holding them too loosely. Might have to print both and see which one works best.

Anyway, this flower might outlast me. As a bonus, it can also be easily hung on the wall with a nail. It at least made her smile!

(and with the time spent on this, I could have cnc milled a flower out of 304 stainless and still come out ahead... hmm... maybe next year?)