This is something I know well
Deer skins to Bucksins is "OK" but it can be confusing with lots of options and forks in the discussion.
1. It's easier to buy lye from Lowes but...Make your own lye water- use a plastic or wooden bucket with a small hole in the bottom, throw some sand in there, cover with straw a few inches then fill the rest with the ashes. Pour your water over the ashes slowly and catch the run off in another nonmetallic bucket. The sand and straw act as a filter. Take the run off and pour it through 2 more times to leach more lye from the ashes. Take the water an boil it down to 50% volume. This can be used to buck the hide. If you just throw ashes in water it stains the hide and itsn't strong enough and you end up just retting the hide. A strong alkali keeps bacteria at bay and helps remove oils and proteins and causes the hide to swell for better graining.
2. Once the hair falls out easily put the hide on your scraping bench and push the hair off in a line in front of you. Then go back over the same area scraping harder. You will scrape off a slimy, cheesey substance that is the "grain". Wipe your scraper and repeat over and over. Keep working the area until your scraper doesn't bring up any more grain. Then scrape an area about an inch wide adjacent to your original area and slowly work until the until hide is scraped completely clean of the grain. Leaving grain on will prevent penetration of the softening agents,
3. Rinse the hide in a stream or in a bucket changing the water 5-6 times over a few days. All the plumpness should be out and it should feel like a rag.
4. scrape the membrane off the flesh side. Keep working it until you see more cheesy substance come up with very thin strips of tissue. Leaving any membrane on prevents penetration of the softening agent. Check to make sure no grain is still on the hair side.
5. Neutralize the lye by putting the hide in a bucket with 1/2 cup of vinegar in a gallon of water. Soak it occasionally swirling it around for 30 minutes or so.
6. PUt the hide back on the bench asd scrape again to squeegee out as much water as possible.
7. Mix egg yolks (or brains) with 1/2 gallon of warm water and put your hide in it. The hide will soak it up like a FrogTog. Then you have to ring it out, catching the drippings so you can soak it up again. Do this 5 times. Watch a video on ringing it out.
8. Now you have to stretch it on a rack while it is drying. You can go slow in the beginning but as it dries you have to get very aggressive so the the fibers don't stick to each other with the hide glue that is still inside. IF an area dries too much mist a little water on it and stretch more. This takes a few hours. The problem occurs when you stop stretching and an area dries hard.
9. use Elmers glue to glue it in a tube and hang it over a bucket with burning coals and rotted wood until it turns a nice shade off brown. The creosote water proofs the hide and turns it to leather. Turn it inside out and repeat.
here is a pic of my chest of hides I did this year
