Discussion Elemental Crafting techniques

There was a post i saw a while ago that talked about various ways to craft with the elements. Such as to craft a sword you could smelt it with fire, shape it with metal, turn it into liquid with water or grow metal fruits using wood. But usually in novels they just stick to using various types of fire (cold yin fire, third earth fire, true yang flame etc.) in cauldrons.

What are some interesting ways to craft with the five elements you can think of?

Ex: Using corroding water qi to dissolve unrefined ore

 

nuke ? h-bomb ? any kind of big yield blast thingy ?

 

Using wood to grow a staff (Weapons don't have to be out of metal after all).
Using some fire to heat (optional) a precious metal and use metal to filter out the impurities.
Using earth to literally "press" the weapon into shape (still works best if metal is heated though)
Using earth to simply unearthen the precious metalls.

As for medicine:
Use water to wash, boil, steam, etc. the ingredients in shape.
Use wood to simply remove the unhelpful parts of a plant and swallow the beneficial rest.
...

There are a lot of ways to use other elements than fire to craft anything.
Not sure if most novels go with fire because:
1. It's easier.
2. It is based on cultural belief from who knows how long ago.
3. The MC has fire affinity and the MC has to be the best at everything to have more girls fall for him because he is the MC and his fire affinity makes him soooo "hot".