I can't believe this story got so few votes. It's great story of the ups and downs an entrepreneur went through to bring his product to the market. Worth the read.
A lot of the people on HN are software guys, they have no connection to something like this. This is one of the best stories I've seen on HN in a while becuase I'm actually a product guy and manufacturing is a huge component of it. In fact manufacturing is usually far harder than design for an entrepreneur. The capital required means you have to use a contracter, and for something cheap like a toy you probably have to go to Asia where the quality is lower but the prices are low enough to make it work. Hell, I was at a company that used US manufacturers and we got screwed over for hundreds of thousands of dollars from multiple vendors because they were unable to deliver on quality - not to mention the oppurtunity cost of time delays. How many web app startups can you boot strap for the value of one manufacturers mistake? The stakes are higher because there is a lot more capital in play.
And don't think you can't find bad molders here in the US, or moldmakers that steer your work to a certain molder, who just happens to be an in-law. The best was a molder that found a way to "lose" several parts of a mold just as it was being picked up and moved to another mold shop. "Must have fell of your truck, buddy!". Hmm.
Oh yeah: if you let the moldmaker do the mold design, be sure and get copies of all the files, even if you don't have the CAD system to open or edit the files! Don't trust 'em to back up their hard drive.
I would say that it's not that "unbelievable." Guy does business with shady third world factory, gets screwed over... It's long and ends 5 years ago with a cliffhanger.
It's likely* a play on the phrase, "(put the) pedal to the metal", i.e. going all out (based on the notion of pushing a car's gas pedal as far as possible, for maximum speed):
* Can't be fully certain it's intentional, given the many examples Google has for the phrase where the use of "mettle" (or "medal") is clearly a mistake.