Unlevel face cuts

[Dale Hatfield]

hinge wood actually bends. Excess hinge  breaks to allow the hinge to bend.
Rule of thumb for hardwood hinge thickness is 10% of DBH. Anything thicker than that is running risk of splitting the log or Barber Chair .
Pulling A tree over with excess hinge wood ,could  lead to a barber chair, as top is falling faster than wood (hinge )can break or bend to keep up with falling top.
Dale

[Kevin]

At least one exception to that would be frozen wood Dale.
Frozen hinge wood doesn't co-operate at all.
It usually shears across limiting the mechanics of the hinge.