In Eastern Chou times, pre-cast legs and handles of thin-walled bronze <i>Ting</i>-cauldrons were usually interlocked mechanically to the vessel body in a two-stage casting process. The appurtenances were inserted into the space between the core and the piece-mold assembly for the vessel body. Core material was excavated around the re-entrantly shaped terminals to allow the second pour metal, on solidification, to fix the inserts to the vessel body. A study of this technique has been made by examination of a sample of an Eastern Chou <i>Ting</i>-cauldron, consisting of the junction between a handle and a vessel body. Although mechanical interlocking was evident at one section of the handle, another section was bonded by fusion to the vessel body. Casting tests were therefore conducted to determine conditions under which fusion bonding can occur in two-stage bronze casting processes. These tests indicated that fusion bonding readily occurs under appropriate casting conditions, and reinforced the view that fusion bonding in the <i>Ting</i>-cauldron was not deliberate, but arose adventitiously because of effective heat transfer to certain regions of the pre-cast handle. -- AATA