The technology of high‐velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) thermal spraying is today one of the more important processes used to apply carbide based coatings. HVOF spraying has been transforming from gas‐fuelled towards liquid‐fuelled systems. An apparent benefit from this development is to use low‐cost fuels such as kerosene. In this work a WC‐CoCr powder was thermally sprayed by three different variants of the high velocity oxy‐fuel process, in which the fuels were hydrogen and kerosene. This study was carried out in order to evaluate the influence of HVOF spray parameters on some coating properties. Investigations into the microstructural evolution of the coatings, using scanning electron microscopy and X‐ray diffraction, are presented along with results on their mechanical and tribological properties.