Thermally sprayed coating characteristics and mechanical properties are in part a result of the residual stress developed during the fabrication process. The total stress state in a coating/substrate is comprised of the quench stress and the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch stress. The quench stress is developed when molten particles impact the substrate and rapidly cool and solidify. The CTE mismatch stress results from a large difference in the thermal expansion coefficients of the coating and substrate material. It comes into effect when the substrate/coating combination cools from the equilibrated deposit temperature to room temperature. This paper describes a laser-based technique for measuring the curvature of a coated substrate and the analysis required to determine residual stress from curvature measurements. Quench stresses were determined by heating the specimen back to the deposit temperature thus removing the CTE mismatch stress. By subtracting the quench stress from the total residual stress at room temperature, the CTE mismatch stress was estimated. Residual stress measurements for thick (>1mm) spinel coatings with a Ni-Al bond coat on 304 stainless steel substrates were made. It was determined that a significant portion of the residual stress results from the quenching stress of the bond coat and that the spinel coating produces a larger CTE mismatch stress than quench stress.