Hardinge Inc. began production of collets in the 1890s for use on bench lathes making parts for the watchmaking and lens industries. It is believed that the "C" designation for their first 5C collets came from the name of the Cataract waterfalls that could be viewed from the factory grounds of the Hardinge Brothers Co. in Chicago, where they manufactured precision Cataract bench lathes. Incredibly, the Hardinge C-series design has not changed since the early use in the 1890s, even in light of the rapidly changing technology in machine tool design.
