Hardinge Inc. (<a href="http://www.hardinge.com">www.hardinge.com</a>), the world’s largest manufacturer of spindle tooling, 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 Company in Chicago, Illinois where they manufactured ...This story is related to the following:Expanding Collets | Lathe Chucks | Square Collets | Quick Change Collet Chucks | Collet Lathes