OK, so I was multiplying the drops by 100 instead of 10, so my CH is actually at 190. Glad I caught it before I bought all the stuff. However, I have a question:

In the water softening procedure it says to add 9 pounds of soda ash for every tablespoon in the bucket test, plus one more. Basically it is calling for a ratio of added soda ash depending on the CH level. However, it seems to me that the actual method is to get the pH above 10 in order to get calcium to precipitate. It wouldn't actually matter what the CH level is, I just need to get pH to 10. Is this not correct?

For example, what if the CH is at 400 and I want to lower it. According to the procedure I would be adding about 45 pounds of soda ash. If my starting pH is on the low end, I may only get to 9 or 9.5. Am I off base on this?