The frequent defects of the metal parts, such as non-fully melting, thermal strain, and balling, which are produced by selective laser melting (SLM) that is a novel method of one-step manufacturing, are analyzed theoretically and experimentally. The processing parameters significantly affect the quality of the final parts, and simultaneously, the appropriate laser mode and the special scanning strategy assure a satisfying quality of the final parts. The SLM experiment is carried out using Cu-based powder. The metal part is divided into several scanned regions, each of which is scanned twice at the cross direction with different scanning speeds. The microstructure is analyzed on microscope. The results show that the part is metallurgically bonded entity with a relative density of 95%, and the microstructure is composed of equiaxial crystal and dendritic crystal whose distributions are mainly decided by the scanning strategy. The frequent defects of the metal parts, such as non-fully melting, thermal strain, and balling, which are produced by selective laser melting (SLM) that is a novel method of one-step manufacturing, are analyzed theoretically and experimentally. The processing parameters significantly affect the quality of the final parts, and simultaneously, the appropriate laser mode and the special scanning strategy assure a satisfying quality of the final parts. The SLM experiment is carried out using Cu-based powder. The metal part is divided into several The results show that the part is metallurgically bonded entity with a relative density of 95%, and the microstructure is composed of equiaxial crystal and dendritic crystal whose distributions are mainly decided by the scanning strategy.