/jp/ - Otaku Culture

In the first sentence, is it common to just use the stem of the てみる form to say "would you like to try to..."? Is omitting like that just for the てみる form or does it apply to other times of grammar as well?

For the second sentence, is it literally like "If I knew the way to hold (this), it would be good, right?" and less literally "How do I hold this?"