I believe it was metal with plastic on it maybe, but be careful prying it up. It will bend if you're not careful with it. You can just use silicon or something to skeet over the hairline cracks, then re apply the strip. No, not jb weld. I used a glue called heavy duty welder or something like that. It was or is a clear silicon type glue. I did'nt have any silicon so i just used what i had and it worked fine. You would never think that it would or could leak in those little cracks, but it did mine. The cracks were barely noticable under the strip.