If you're just making rawhide, nothing is easier than hydrated lime. It does take a little time, but a quart jar of lime to about 15 gallons water will slip the hair and leave the entire grain layer. You can soak a hide in lime for as long as you need, a month, even, if you stir it sometimes and keep it out of the sun. When you can just push the hair off with your hand, it's ready. Of course, any of the alkali soaks have to be neutralized. There are lots of ways to do this. The quickest I've found it ammonium sulphate, it's pretty cheap, you can use it to fertilize your garden if you like, and it works overnight, one handful to about four gallons water does two deer hides. The only downside to the lime is that the white residue is hard to get back out. If you choose to braintan the hide, you don't want the residue, it will mess up the softening. You can leave them in a stream for a couple days, like some of the old tannerys did. Stretch tight on the frame and you have good strong rawhide, or you can scrape off the grain and go to brain tanning.
