SWIM is having some difficulty finding any lye in his city, He's been to every hardware store and grocery store and he can't find any. I've been reading that lime may be a decent substitute for STB teks, though none of the STB teks they used where the lazyman's tek. And the lazyman's tek is the only one SWIM is interested in doing for various reasons. If it will work would the steps be the exact same and just substitute in the same amount of pickling lime as the tek listed for lye? He read he may get a smaller percent extracted using lime, but that is fine if that is the case.

no you cant.. calcium hydroxide is very poorly soluble in water, it will only work for the so-called dry teks. If you want to use calcium hydroxide, do a dry tek like q21's tek, or amor fati's non-toxic approach or 69ron's food-safe cactus extraction (substituting the cactus for MHRB in your case

No, using the same amount of lime will not be a substitute for lye. Lime is not highly soluble in water, so a dry tek should be chosen. Take a look at Q2121's.
What are the specific reasons for preferring lazyman's tek?

You can always order NaOH online if you can't find any in stores.

edit: OK, endlessness, it seems I essentially repeated all you said a minute later. Oh well.

Yeah, looks like I'm gonna have to order it online, which I wanted to avoid. Thanks for the answer, there seems to be a lot of bad information on the web about this.

You could mix lime with sodium carb. in water to make lye soln. Be careful and work slow if you choose to do this as lye is much more corrosive than either of the ingredients.

yeah, i too was thinking/considering ordering online....but sorta have this hesitation, thinking that it could bring about unwanted attention...? not sure how "things" are monitored with the mail.
do you have a specific place you might order from? i've found it available even on ebay, but i recall someone kinda saying not to bother with it through there.
peace.

also taking interest in the q21q21 tek as another method to try out.

Lime is easily found at gardening stores.

before ordering online, you should try finding a mom and pop hardware store in town.

My first tek was lazy man.... please reconsider your choice in tek. In the end you will expend more energy doing the lazyman tek than you will with a BLAB. If you follow the lazyman tek it to the tee.. you will wish you followed my advice.

Now.... I did lazyman because I ordered whole bark. Turns out my blender and condo were not up to the task. Bark is tough to powder with a less than stellar blender. All the other teks required powder bark...so I went lazy.

If this is your problem too (whole bark--weak blender), I suggest you cut it up with tin-snips as small as you can. Then follow another tek, just let the lye work at the bark longer before your first solvent pull.

The real problem with the lazyman tek is the stainless mixing bowl. This spreads your solvent layer out so thin that you have a hard time recovering the solvent. The huge bowl is also a pain in the ass to move around, cover or manage in any way.

I ended up transferring the contents of the bowl to a 5 gallon HDPE bucket. That still turned out to be a pain in the ass for the same reasons as the bowl.

I then transferred to HDPE jugs.... works much better.

If you can't get lye...try q21's tek like mentioned above.

If you can find lye.. try the BLAB tek

my friend uses q21's tek, its awesome. fluffy white xtals every time and its sooo easy!

Ditto on Q21's tek. I've tried others and Q21's is by far the easiest I've used. Decanting is as simple as pouring off the solvent. No more using syringes and trying not to suck up your plant material.