I will be starting my new motor soon and I want to make sure I understand the timing aspect of the motor. To set your initial timing, you take the No.1 piston to TDC and then rotate the balancer to whatever you want your initial timing to be like 10degs. BTDC. Am I right? Do you turn the balancer clockwise? It also must be on the compression stroke. Once this is done, I set the distributor in so it points to the No. 1 cylinder. Then the rest in done by mechanical advance. Any help would be appreciated.

You're fairly close. Here's how I would do it.

Bump the engine over (turn it by hand if you wish) until #1 is just approaching TDC. Using the marks on the timing tab carefully turn the crank so the mark on the dampner is at about 10-12 degs BTDC. If you have points you can now connect your timing light, turn the key to the on position and move the dist a bit in each direction. When the light flashed is where you want to tighten down the dist.

If you have HEI you can't use the timing light but you can pop the cap to see where the rotor is pointing and using a short straight edge to eye ball aligning the rotor and #1 terminal. Hold the straight edge lined up with the rotor, place the cap back on and turn the dist until the terminal lines up with the straight edge. You'll be within a deg or two this way.

To find TDC on #1 pull the valve cover and on the #1 cyl both valves will be closed and the timing mark on the dampner is lined up with 0 (zero) on the timing tab. Turning the engine clockwise you will see the timing mark aproaching the 0 and anything to the right of 0 is After TDC (or retarded) to the left of 0 is before TDC (or advanced)