I'm not sure if this adds anything constructive, but from what I've seen in central Maine homes and barns, the vast majority of the framing is neither square rule or scribe rule. The buildings are just like Tim described, mostly hewn with some smaller sawn stock, but no reductions, no housings (indicating square rule), no out of square shoulders, no scribing to wane, no marriage marks, and no 2' marks (indicating scribe rule). I think they just wanted a building. I see lots of buildings with tie beams spaced maybe 4' apart sitting over continuous plates. I've seen some dovetails on the bottoms of those ties, and I've not seen them (spiked?). I mentioned this at the Maine timber framers meeting this winter. I'm also still curious what the earliest known date for a square rule building in Maine is. No one at the meeting seemed to know. If my Maine hodgepodge framing theory is correct though, the dates may also be a hodgepodge.

Two questions for you Will...what is the Dutch convention? And where do the French traditionally put their 2' mark (for posts)?

Brad