How do you do work on an atom so that the nuclear force can overcome the repulsive force.
Building large nuclei is a curiosity in modern science, not a sensible scheme for synthesizing elements. Most of the heavy elements in our world were made during a supernova explosion sometime before the formation of our present solar system about 5 billion years ago. During the supernova explosion, the temperatures became so high that nuclei of all sorts crashed into one another violently and many heavy nuclei were created. The work needed to build these giant nuclei came from the heat of this horrendous explosion.