Bottles are a necessary part of life. They have been made on Pern for hundreds of years, though not in large quantities, due to the fact that each one must either be completely 'blown', or partially 'blown', depending on whether a mold is used. The purpose of this scroll is to describe the different ways to make bottles and the reasons why they are a necessary product.

Glass bottles of all shapes and sizes have been easier to make since the use of the mold became common practice. Before that, they were all free blown. Essentially, that means that someone with really good lungs and good technique would huff and puff through a blowpipe (long hollow tube, usually of iron) and blow air into a gather (blob of molten glass) of glass, as a person would blow a bubble with soap suds, than move it around while blowing to shape it. This technique, while it worked, was fairly crude, and tended to not only make lopsided bottles, of simple design, but also tended to ruin the lungs of the blower, due to having to constantly filling lungs to overcapacity to blow hard, and also from burning the lungs when sucking in hot air through the tube produced by the molten glass on the other end.

After the base and sides of the bottle were blown, a pontil (long iron rod used to hold molten glass) was attached to the base by a helper, and the neck was stretched into being. The blowpipe was than detached from the bottle, and while it was still held to the pontil, a lip was attached, to the top. After it was cooled a bit, the ponitl was tapped, and the bottle would fall off, to finish cooling on its own. These earlier bottles were, as I have mentioned, crude, and no two were alike. It was not until molds were created that bottles became more common, as well as more useful.

Molds, when they came into being, were much easier to use for several reasons. The first, is that it was easier on the lungs. The gather of glass to make the bottle only needed to be blown so that it was hollow before it was pressed in the mold, and than a few quick puffs filled it out so that the glass conformed. After that, it was the molds job. The second, is that it made the bottles more uniform, and symmetrical. The first molds were primitive. Made out of a single block of wood, the mold itself was only for the base and sides of the bottle. The neck had to be added by hand, later. These earliest molds are called 'open molds'. The next type of molds used were 'closed molds'. These were made of two blocks of wood, in which the shape of a whole bottle was wittled out, neck and all. The molten glass was pressed into the mold, which was than closed, and air blown into it to compress the glass against the sides of the mold, keeping the middle hollow. After being cooled, the two pieces of the mold were opened,nd inside would be a molded bottle, in it's entirety. The only defect of molds is that it is impossible to get them completely closed. Thus, mold made bottle have seams up the sides. Another variation of mold is the 'three piece mold' which is a combination of the two previous types; the base and sides being an 'open' mold, than the neck and lip being made with a 'close mold' placed on top. This is the way bottles are made at present. It is much easier to make them this way than the old 'free blown' way, but still is time consuming, thus, production is limited. The practical uses of glass bottles is varied. Although most wine is stored in skins, the bubbly wine, called champagne, needs to be pressurized, which is easier to do in glass than skin. Perfume bottles are necessarily made from glass, because glass is nonpermeable, keeping the liquid inside from either vaporizing into the air from being open, or being soaked into a less pracitacal container. And most importantly, glass bottles are used in the healer craft, to hold the invaluable array of medicines
that are required to cure or treat sick people. Without glass, Pern would not have the quality of healing it enjoys today.

To conclude, glass bottles, though time consuming, are well worth the cost of time. For without them, our lives would not be as comfortable, in one way or another. For this reason, it is a skill which I believe should be improved, making it simpler and easier to produce. I hope to one day find a method of doing so.