I put together a fourth one today. Its a traditional made with honey from the Texas Bee Keepers Guild. 9 1/2 lbs to 3 gal vol with D47 yeast. This will be the first one I haven't pasteurized. No heat at all except warming some of the water to aid in dispersal of the honey.
Well, it's really no good quoting water to weight ratio's. The differing levels of sugar in different honey will modify the gravity. It's better to have a rough guesstimate of how much honey you'll need, then get a little more. Mix the batch, say, 3 or 3 and a 1/2 lb per gallon then take a reading.
Plus, it's a honey must we're alluding too, not a beer wort. There's no need to heat honey (even if it's crystalised some - just mix is in a sanitised liquidiser or blender - it's hygroscopic so will mix relatively easily, plus a good blitzing gets plenty of air/O2 into it). It's natures most naturally sterile substance (yes I know about the possibilities, but it's been used for millenia with no real issues - "they" weren't as obsessed as we tend to be these days).
Also, there's reason to boil beer worts, whereas with a honey must, all the sugars are readily fermentable.
D47 ? Ok, but make sure you keep it below 70F/21C as it's known as a bugger for producing fusels if fermented too high.
With my background in molecular and microbiology, it is difficult to grow a bug in unsterilized medium. But, from what I have read, the honey/water mix is apparently difficult to contaminate as long as general sterile technique is maintained. And, of course, bugs that grow in the blood don't like the environment of alcoholic/acidic mead.
Beer people tend to be obsessive, to keep their recipes absolute. Meads, while similar to wines in the making are also different. Especially as some of the suggested/recommended techniques are heresy to wine/beer makers. It's usually enough to maintain a good general level of hygiene, because you don't want wild yeast or stuff like acetobacter getting in there.
For your gravity considerations, D47 is good for about 14% (that's the published tolerance, but the data alludes to grape musts - careful management can often get you a higher %ABV) so something like 1.110 (presuming dry as 1.000 - and yes I know it's easy to get it dryer) should give you 14% and a tiny bit of residual sweetness <1% plus it should be reasonably easy to manage....