Are you talking about laminating the battery cavity in a board?
The method all the manufacturers use is to use a reverse mold. That way the finish of the box perfect and doesn’t require post touch up…
Yeah the ceapest is to just vac bag down. An alternatice to get a good finish on the base is to vac back a piece of polycarbonate down. I did this on one board and then you get a nice smooth base. I didn’t care about the sides being rough.