I could use a little advice on how to remedy my current situation with my hand planes. Let me provide a little background first:
These planes are all vintage planes, not new purchases. I found them at flea markets and such, planning to rehab them. I cleaned them up, sharpened the blades, and even went so far as to use a surface grinder to flatten and square the soles of the planes (hopefully not heating the cast iron and dishing them too badly....). But nothing seemed to get them back into working shape.
Now, months and months later, I finally look at them again, trying to figure out why they won't cut smoothly. They always seemed to dig in or not cut at all, no in-between. And when they did cut, they'd often get shaving jammed between the chip breakers and the blades. I finally notice what was staring me in the face this whole time. On ALL of them, the adjustment lever was too wide for the slot in the blade. So, they would engage the yoke enough to advance the blade, but they'd never sit flat on the frog, meaning they'd flex and move as I used them.
So, now, I'm trying to figure out how to remedy this. I already used my rotary tool and a grinding tool to flatten the sides on each of the levers. All the blades now sit flat on the frog and engage the yokes sufficiently HOWEVER... none of them will advance far enough to cut anything before the screw that holds the chip breaker to the iron hits the cap iron screw or runs out of room. Even using new Veritas chip breakers and blades, they still have the same issue. Not enough room around the wide, flat screw to advance the blade enough to cut. Except for one plane, which has extra room (see the side-by-side image below). Although, it won't cut. But that's likely because my sharpening angle is too steep, causing it to skip instead of cut.
How can I get around this issue? Am I just stuck? Do I need new frogs? What's the best way to deal with this problem, without just buying newly-made or already-fettled planes?
Example images:
Before slimming down the adjusters:
After some grinding, it sits flat:
But, now there's not enough room for the screw... notice the red paint that rubbed off from me trying to advance it without sufficient room:
Notice how one has more space leading down to the cap iron screw than the other. The right plane has the issue: