Measurements have been made of the residual stress development in a solvent-deposited thermoplastic coating and a two-component thermoset by monitoring the bending of the steel substrate using strain gauges. The stresses in single layers were found to be significant when compared to the strength of the coatings. When the thermoset was applied on top of the thermoplastic (undercoat), the stress in the top coat was much less than that obtained when the thermoset was applied directly to the steel substrate. This was deduced using a new elastic analysis for tri-layers (substrate plus bi-layered coating).