What's the best way to put a hole in a ping-pong ball?
I don't know, but I can tell you the worst way to put a hole in a ping-pong ball is to melt it.

I was a pubescent lass who had just discovered the Anarchist's Cookbook. I was having a blast making napalm, thermite, and other explosive substances for the purpose of blowing mailboxes and gopher holes to smithereens. I had a whole drawer in my room filled with black powder, solidox, and fuses. One day I got the bright idea to fill a ping-pong ball with black powder and make it go boom. I could have used a drill. I could have used a knife. I could have used a pen. But my dumb ass decided to melt a hole in a ping-pong ball. Not only that, but I decided to do this right over my explosives drawer. With my friend holding the ping-pong ball with a set of pliers, I lit the lighter under it.

I'm not sure exactly what ping-pong balls are made out of, but whatever it is it's flammable as a motherfucker. The fireball melted off the pliers and melted onto the top of a coffee can filled with about 2 kg of black powder. My friend and I gave each other the "Shit!" look and we hit the deck. I heard the 20 feet of fuse I had in the drawer light and I kissed my ass good bye. After spending a few moments on the floor and realizing that we weren't dead yet, we scrambled to put out the fuse. If you have ever tried to put out a fuse or even seen a Wile E. Coyote cartoon you know it's virtually impossible.

So my friend and I are trying to stomp this fuse out on the carpet in my bedroom upstairs and now my mother is knocking on the door wondering what's going on. The carpet was burned, I was grounded, but at least I didn't blow up the house.
(anotherlogan and the whit he shites, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 1:46, 3 replies)

Nitrocellulose
The good ping pong balls are essentially the same stuff as guncotton.

Sorta looks and feels like plastic, but it isn't...
(pizzaforcat ate some cement and HARDENED the FUCK UP on, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 2:59, closed)

Aaaah i was there once
But i learned through painful experience to keep flammable things in a completely different part of the room and in a cardboard container.
if it ignited in a cardboard box it'd just burn if it ignited in a sealed tin it'd boom and i'd nodoubt be dead before i could finish wanking
aye.
(Freddles, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 6:13, closed)

For future reference...
heat up a precision screwdriver with a blowtorch and stick a hole in it that way. Worked every time for me.

However, stuffing black powder of any quantity into a ping-pong ball will NOT result in a "boom" or any other explosion noise. You simply don't get enough pressure... so the powder ignites, melts the plastic instantly and just makes a roaring flame.

Now, if you were to cut strips of thick brown paper, soak them in methylcellulose and water (dries rock hard) and then apply them in a massively thick layer to the ball, THEN when you've got about 1cm of rock hard layer of uber-paper, varnish the bastard, you WILL have something capable of containing the hot gases a little better and a boom ye shall receive.
(keyboardman, Mon 28 Jul 2008, 12:02, closed)