The invention is an alignment tool for precisely aligning a workpiece to the saw blade of a cutting tool so that as the saw blade and the workpiece are brought together, the predetermined plane of cut through the workpiece, as defined for example by scribe lines on the workpiece, is aligned with the saw blade cutting plane as defined by the leading cutting edge of the saw blade. The base member is stranded to be formed as a cord-like member. The coating is tinted after curing with a dye to provide light absorbency in the coating. Decoding methods are also provided for extracting the tracking data.