Reply To: Problem restoring a Stanley #4: frog seems too far back
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Yes, the front bottom lip of the frog can and should extend past the opening of the mouth. If it doesn’t, the blade sits awkwardly on the opening of the mouth, and doesn’t seat properly on the frog. This causes your plane to run absolutely terribly, and you won’t be able to work out why.
You can take very good shavings without closing the mouth up completely. I’d say 1/16th is probably fairly close to ideal for general work.
What kind of jig are you using to sharpen your plane blade? It’s entirely possible that that is part of the problem. Until I stopped using jigs I couldn’t get a decent result. It’s also possible that when you got the blade, it was already out of square. The best solution is going to be to carefully regrind the edge on a benchgrinder, and from then on just try to maintain a square edge when honing.
If you could remove the frog and take some good photos of it, that might also help to diagnose the problem.