About Scribes in the Heartwood

Scribes in the Heartwood is a specialised historical register and timber-deformation workspace for vernacular architecture preservationists, historic timber framers, architectural conservators, researchers, and professionals documenting traditional load-bearing frames.

The app is designed to solve a common documentation problem: information about a historic timber joint is often scattered across field photographs, paper notebooks, spreadsheets, survey drawings, and separate structural observations. Scribes in the Heartwood brings those details together in one structured record.

Each joint can be documented with its photograph, registry code, joint type, carpenter’s marriage mark, tenon geometry, trunnel configuration, timber species, moisture content, estimated shear capacity, diagnostic status, tags, and field notes.

The app also provides visual tools for modelling moisture-related deformation and placing recorded joints within a simplified building-frame map.

Getting Started

No account, registration, subscription, or login credentials are required to access the app’s main features.

After opening the app:

  1. Tap Enter the Register.
  2. Open the Register tab to view existing joint records.
  3. Tap Add to create a new record.
  4. Complete the four registration stages.
  5. Save the finished record to the register.

No external sample files are required. If demonstration records are included in the submitted build, they appear directly in the Register and can be opened without importing additional material.

Creating a Joint Record

Tap Add from the Register to begin a new joint record.

Step 1: Identity

Add the basic identification information: