Timing can be set reasonably quickly staticly and in days of old - that was the only way most cars were set. One simply assumed the various advancing methods were doing their job correctly.
In terms of the explanation - I was trying to fit the level to the audience. It's often a thankless task as one person will say too simple and another will say "what?".
I stick with my argument though, from the static position, all the various mechanisms do is advance a bit, or not. If you have 8 degrees static, that is the base point - it's all advance from then on.
Modern cars, though may be more complicated, but the questioner hasn't got one.
I'm not giving instructions, just a bit of background. If anyone doesn't know what the bits are, look here (vacuum can is the disk shaped object on the right in the first picture):
Lucas Distributor rebuild Manual ignition timing control on the 1930 car is much more fun...
