The only thing that's usually tedious for me is bronze, so i usually just get enough to make weapons and tools and then skip the armour as troll is much better, otherwise a lot of other things are relaxing and quite satisfying.

Iron however CAN become tedious if your world has little/bad crypt rng, at that point, sailing around the world trying to find a swamp, to then hope you find a crypt, to then hope that there's iron in the chests can be very inconsistent and as a result, frustrating. (This may apply to other ores too, but usually it's iron)

Though the other metals are fine, silver is usually abundant in it's veins and it only takes one or two to make everything you need, and black ore is easy and fun to loot off the fulings and their villages.