Foundries

With foundries added to the game it would add a lot of variance with the metals in the game; some of these I have thought of as "utility metals" as to not change the core armor/weapon builds in game. For instance an addition of metal such as zinc with copper could make brass - a metal that has heat resistance which can possibly be used to upgrade furnaces/foundries! Zinc has properties that allow it to make metals somewhat water resistant - it also has biological properties that allow for wound healing. With no additional ore coded into the game, the foundry could be used to make steel! Steel is a combination of coal and iron, there are different levels of carboned (coal)  steel and each has different properties, but in essence the higher carbon content the  harder but more brittle the metal is. A foundry could also be used to make alloys with the existing metals! Maybe combine diamond and gold to get the strength of diamond but piglin value of gold. Now, just the foundry as a block, have you thought "man auto crafting would be nice" if molds were added into the game in conjunction with the foundry it could be used to auto craft metal items! Say you placed a sword mold under the foundry and as the metal melts it fills the mold and as the mold cools voila! A sword! This could be used with metal blocks as well because you only need so many swords. A foundry could also smelt items down and give more than a single nugget too.