As my father I were cleaning out his garage, he gave me a #4 hand plane he had come across at a garage sale. He thought the plane was valuable, which I doubted, but felt it might be a decent user plane. The plane was pretty rusty and the blade looked beyond use, but I took it home, cleaned things up, and bought a replacement blade and chip cap.
I read through instructions on plane restoration, which have illustrations of several types of frogs, but in every illustration, the frog is supported on the body of the plane on the sides rearward of the screws and across the front or point closet to the mouth. The frog on this plane is supported by just the sides reward of the screws. When the frog is mounted, the front of the frog has a gap about the width of a dime between it and the body. The frog appears stiff when the screws are tightened, but I was wondering if the design might be an issue getting a clean result. When I test the plane, it wants to dig into the wood, even though the blade is barely out of the plane's sole.
I don't really have any experience with hand planes, so I also suspect that my problem is as much a lack of knowledge on how to adjust and use a plane. Although I've read and attempted to make suggested adjustments from articles I've read, I don't seem to be able to make much progress on correcting the problem.
Here are several pictures I've taken. The plane appears to be a war-year plane due to it's thicker body and steel hardware. There are no markings on the plane to indicate that this is a Stanley plane. The body and the blade only says "Made in USA".