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This is a method of cutting out the belt holes and tips together and perfectly every time. In the following I will show how I go about making a jig/alignment tool the old way as well as the new 3d printed way. Because I do mostly production manufacturing, time and quality are always important factors to be considered. As I am working on a tutorial on how I make combination dress belts shortly I thought best to do this one in order to cut down some of the explanations in that later one. I will start this with a couple of pictures of the type of belts I make to show off how the tongue holes and buckle holes and tips are done. This first one is one of the styles of the dress belts I commonly make. It is the 30mm version with a removable buckle retainer. I like this style mostly because the buckle retainer can be taken of the belt easily shortened which means if a customer is buying a gift for someone else they can safely get a long one and get it shortened. This hornback version also has a removable buckle retainer and is for a 45mm (1 3/4") buckle. This version is what I am going to show how I make up a jig for doing the holes etc. I use a clicker press and knives for doing this job but some workable inexpensive presses can do this work as well. Some of these can be found in this earlier post I did awhile ago and note that they are also useful for wet moulding, stamping and other things. After I have done my cad drawings and sent the patterns to the knife/die maker, he sends back a pretty good knife that will cut out the shape. One with the tongue tip and holes like this below should set you back about $150 AU or a little over $100 US dollars. This is done on 19mm or 3/4" steel rule die and will last for many years and many thousands of cuts. Once I get the knife back and in hand I grind away the edges so that only the tip and holes will be cut. Care must be taken not to touch the hole punches when doing this grinding process. After this step I construct a jig using 3mm (1/8") painted Masonite board for the base and normally some skirting pine that is typically used in internal door surrounds. That is normally around 30 to 40mm by 12mm (1 1/4" to 11/2" by 3/8"). I cut 2 pieces of the pine to the same length as the knife and with the knife held in between these I scribe a mark to cut the Masonite width and similarly the end stop smaller piece of pine. I then with a sharp knife carve out a recess for the belt tip leather to go in under for the tongue line up cut. Around 3 or 4mm normally will work OK. following this I cut the Masonite to width and glue and attach with small nails the 2 side strips of pine. Before attaching the end stop pine piece I tap down the knife enough to mark the Masonite well in order to get centre marking for cutting out. Once a clear centre line is drawn in and the width of the belt to be held is marked in place I proceed to do cut lines with a band saw or handsaw. (Back shortly)