YY3568 - Can't erase eMMC to boot from SD card

[fss-hacks]

This is a sidebar/urgent request for help.
I was previously able to install Armbian noble on my YY3568 board thanks to instructions from these forums (https://forum.armbian.com/topic/49775-board-bring-up-youyeetoo-yy3568-rockchip-rk3568/).

I now need to use the board for a Debian project to help a friend that lost their backup, and am unable to reproduce the instructions in that post to empty the eMMC and enable SD boot. 
The poorly written/flawed instructions in this post involve loading a config file into RKDevTool, writing loader, parameters and uboot, then there is a line about "destroying partitions by writing wipe_part" (a file you can download in the post), with no clarity or description of how to do this. 
The steps then move onto flashing another loader to the board. 
I have done all of these steps in MANY different adaptions and versions and it is always unsuccessful because whatever portion involving the "wipe_part" is missing from the original steps. 
I am hoping that someone else whose board uses similar procedure sees this and can correct the instructions and make SD boot possible again.
It's really aggravating that my board is being held hostage to this - the person who wrote the instructions has worked on other projects with similar steps and others have had the same issue with their incomplete/incorrect instructions in those posts, and so far will not reply regarding this. 
I've tried 4 different versions of RKDevTool and worked for around 7 hours on this so far with no success. I'm hoping someone else can come save me!